What’s in the Preacher’s Pants?

Is that the scariest title you’ve ever heard, or what?

First, you should know that I have a thing for pockets. One can never have too many pockets, that’s my motto. I like secret pockets, little pockets, zipper pockets, all pockets.

My wife disagrees with me. She thinks one CAN have too many pockets. Especially when those pockets are plastered up and down the sides of a ratty looking pair of old hiking shorts. Ahem.

So I’m watching TV and I see this amazing commercial about these Dockers with secret side pockets for all your high tech gadgets and gizmos. The guy in the commercial is shuckin and jiving and shoving phones and computers and all kinds of “guy stuff” into these pockets. All the while he’s dancing and zipping the pockets up and down to the rhythm of the music.

My mouth drops open and I lose the power of speech. I gotta have them pants. Got. To. Have them.

So I went out and bought a pair.

The minute I get home I put them on and cram everything I can find into the secret pockets.

I discover two big problems.

First, I look all bumpy and bulgy.

“Is that a PDA in your pocket, preacher, or are you just glad to see me?”

I don’t understand this because the guy in the commercial looked incredible. Nothing but vertical lines on that guy, and the x-ray clearly showed he was packing HIS hardware.

So I says to my wife, I says, “Hey, I’m all bumpy and bulgy here!” She says, “You’re always bumpy and bulgy, sweetheart. That’s what comes from being 5’9” and 185. No one would call you fat…exactly…but you don’t really have sleek vertical lines. You have bumpy bulges."

I put on my “sad-boy" face. It either gets her every time or she pretends it gets her every time. Either way works for me.

She says, “Don’t worry honey, I LIKE your bulges!”

Okay, first problem solved.

The second problem is a little trickier. It’s more of a physics issue.

You see I discovered that when you shove 10 pounds of hardware into your pants, it’s not comfortable. It doesn’t really matter how cool your pockets are; it's 10 pounds of freakin hardware in your pants. There's really no way around this.

I’m clanking around the room like some kind of futuristic, preaching, freak robot.

It’s that blasted law they call “The Conservation of Matter”. You know, “Items shoved into pockets tend to retain their mass.”

The commercial people LIED to me! Those bastards!

Turns out I can’t carry all my stuff around with me. I guess I wanted pockets that would beam everything put inside them to some alternate universe.

I wanted Star Trek pockets. Was that too much to ask?

I can put my Palm Pilot in the left secret pocket and my cell phone in the right. That is all.

My life is the story of a man who always wants to carry too much. My spiritual quest is the painful process of learning to let go of things not essential.

© Copyright 2005 Preacher. Last update: 7/17/2005; 8:20:39 PM. Links