Pants of betrayal

We had two gigs this weekend - our monthly gig at Junior's Grill and Icehouse in Round Rock, and a Cinco de Mayo gig at Pluckers Wing Bar in Killeen. Now, you might think that the more interesting gig of the two would be Pluckers since it was a holiday gig and it was in a town we don't play very often.

It's fun to play new venues, and Pluckers had a nice stage. We made some new fans (Bonnie, the Realtor, you have the best smile and energy we've seen in a long time!), we ate some great food, and we liked our time slot of 2-6pm. Afternoons can be rough since people aren't always in a rock n' roll mood at 2pm, but it worked for us, because we didn't have to be up early, and we could be home at a decent hour, despite the 1.5 hour drive to Killeen, which was nice since we'd played the night before.

However, all that said, Pluckers was not as interesting to me as Junior's the night before. Because at Pluckers, I was fairly certain that my butt was going to stay firmly tucked away inside my pants. I could not say the same thing at Junior's.

I've got your attention now, don't I?

I got dressed for our gig on Friday wearing a pair of jean leggings, a sparkly tank top and some sandals. We headed to the venue, enjoyed a bit of the band before us, then just before we were to start setting up, I visited the bathroom for some business and a quick check on the hair and lipstick. Luckily, after said check, I turned around for a back view.

I audibly gasped when I saw that the seam in the back of my leggings was coming apart. There are actually two seems, and it was the outside seem that had pulled apart, so there was no flesh visible yet, but it seemed a likely possibility.

 The offending seam

My mind shifted into problem-solving mode, starting with the impassioned thought, "What am I gonna DO??!" Do I have time to run home and change? No. How about Walmart? Do I have time to run somewhere and buy some emergency pants? No.

Okay.

So I briefly ran through repair options. Thread? No - surprisingly, I don't carry a needle and thread with me. Safety pins? More likely, but no, I didn't have any. Tape? Uh, no...I'm not putting duct tape (the only kind we have in the band gear) along the butt crack of my jeans. I doubt it would work, and a photo of me with duct tape on my crack is just as likely to end up on the Internet as my actual ass hanging out.

So, no replacement or repair. Where does that leave me? Cover-up or camouflage. I couldn't think of much for camouflage, but I do keep a jacket in the van. So cover-up it was.

I put the jacket around my waist for set-up, but it didn't look very cool, so when we got ready to play, I told Joe that he had a very important job during this show. He was to keep an eye on my butt. If it appeared, I gave him an alert word to say to tell me, "Hey. Your butt is hanging out." And no, I'm not telling you all the alert word, or you'll start yelling it at me at shows. What - you think I don't know how this works? Oh, this ain't my first rodeo.

I pulled the back of my top as far down as I could get it over my butt, which actually was pretty effective - it covered almost all of the danger area - and we got to work.

At first, I didn't move a whole lot, paranoid I was going to stress the seem and reveal my lack of Spanx shapewear. But after a while, I figured I needed to get my head off of my butt and onto our show, and I started performing more normally. I still felt paranoid every time someone came in the entrance behind us or stood behind me for any length of time, and I listened intently for Joey to utter the alert word, knowing all the while that he might say it just to screw with me. He didn't, but he told me later that he thought about it. I knew it. Kids.

But in the end (PUN!), I made it through the entire show with my pants and my dignity intact. Then we drove home, and I threw those pants directly into the trash.

Even if I sewed the seem up, I'd never trust them again. They are pants of betrayal now. They may not have actually revealed that which they are sworn to protect, but they threatened to. And the law says that if someone threatens bodily injury (this would have been injury to my pride caused by revelation of my body - close enough), and you have reasonable belief that they will follow through with the threat, that's assault. So, my pants assaulted me. And I can't have that.