A story I've been wanting to tell.....

There are some words that should be creeds to live by.  “Keep your underwear in a safe and secure place” is an example of this.  One recent morning, I packed my messenger bag with everything I needed to get me through the work day.  I was planning on working out and decided I should bring a change of “underthings” with me.  I was rushing to get out of the house and carelessly put them in the front portion of my messenger bag.  They joined the intimate club of pens, miscellaneous change, gum, tweezers, bits of paper, receipts (that are probably no longer needed), things that I just don’t know what to do with and my train pass.   Having mastered packing up my bag and getting into the car, I made it without challenge to the train.  I usually expect to travel by train with little or no episode, but some days this is not to be.  It started off like any normal train ride.  Got into my seat, adjusted my messenger bag on the metal rack (as I’m on the top part of the train), pulled my book out and began to read.  I realized after the 3^rd paragraph that I deviated from habit by not pulling out my train pass.  I put my book down, carefully saving my place, swung my knees out of my seat and leaned over unzipping the front compartment of my messenger bag.  I didn’t unzip it all the way in some weird conservation of time and zipper opening.  I reached in, found my pass and began to pull it out.  For some reason it was stuck on something so I tugged a little harder and whatever it was stuck on, gave way, causing me to flip my hand up and out of the bag and into the air.  Unfortunately, my red flowered unders were attached to the train pass until I flipped my hand in the air.  At that point, they were airborne.  I had been fumbling a bit so all eyes were already on me in the train.  Now all eyes were on the downward decent of my parachuting unders.  My first thought was thank God it was a pair of nice ones. I watched, with others as they gently glided onto the lap of a lady in the lower section of the train.  The woman quickly grabbed the offending unders, reached up into the sky and offered them back to me. After a hurried, “um, thanks” I shoved them back into my pack, sat down, picked up my book and began to read.  My fellow passengers settled back into their weekday morning routines of paper reading, ipod listening and laptop typing.  The rest of the train ride was mercifully uneventful.  I tried to gather up my self respect and appear as if nothing had happened.  We pulled into the train station and I grabbed my bag and stood so that I could make a quick exit.  Unfortunately the train was still in motion and we lurched forward as it came to a complete stop.  I lost my balance and fell into the man behind me, who caught me in his arms.  I heavily apologized and felt like a fool.  I felt even more the clown when after I said to the man “oh my. I’m so sorry!! Excuse me!” he replied “that is okay, after all I’ve already seen your underwear”.