So a friend asked "Scarf why do you post storys where you get your ass handed to you by the world ?"

I replied "Because with each passing year these storys get dimmer and dimmer in my head so best to stem off the early onset of Alzhzeimers and write em down ....what were we talking about again ?"

And with that out of way I shall regale you with the first time I lost my pants .


<<< Our Protaganist currently with pants >>>>

As a young spitely child that desperately wanted to forge a tight bond of Friendship with my father
I often wanted to do things he was off doing even if I had no particular intrest in it otherwise .

So it came as no shock to anyone that I wanted more then anything to go camping and fishing with my dad , his buddies from the pool hall and their sons whom were in general 2 to 3 years older then me and were rather unhappy with being saddled with a younger playmate .

That Friday after dad got home from work I helped him load up his old red truck and I was dressed for adventure !

Baggy jeans that my brother had out grown and which I had cinched tightly around my waist with a belt .

A pair of well worn converse all stars which my mom had earmarked for the garbage bin but got a last minute repreive by virtue of mom not wanting me to ruin good shoes .

A John Deere cap which I stole ..err borrowed from dads extensive collection of ball caps

and a brand new flanel shirt which currently had my dads spare pack of Marlboros in its breast pocket which in my mind at the time made me the coolest kid in the world .

With thoughts of Alligators , seeing seminole indians at the fishing lodge and catching a fish in my mind I jumped in the passenger seat and we rode off into the night after escaping from mom and her list of things not to do and to look out for while camping .

<<<Dads great idea to get firewood>>>

So we arrive at the fishing lodge and meet up with my fathers friends and their offspring this was Florida and the Everglades at that and we had just had some hellacious rain so everything was muddy or wet as a kid it was awesome .

My dad volunteered to take the kids to the campsite with one of his buddies in the big red truck and collect firewood .

so about a half dozen youths in the back of a pick up and two nominal adults up front drinking with the radio blaring .

my dad was driving slowly down a back trail slick with mud and our job was to jump (yes jump) from the back of the moving truck grab any old wood we found and run back and jump back in the back with it .......yes this is the same dad that bought me a tether plane for my birthday .

I wasn't too keen on this whole idea but the other kids had done it multiple times and I started to feel peer pressure and the want to fit in so after much coaxing I stood on the back bumper of the truck one foot casually resting on the round metalic trailer hitch .

<<<<<And Then ? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I steeled up my courage and clenched my fists and lept sorta upwards

The problem with all this is that my oversized jeans with flared boot cut bottoms became entangled in the trailer hitch and my graceful leap became a face first fall into mud and backroad gravel , not only that but the truck continued moving forward dragging me through a god awfully large mud puddle .

What of The other kids in the back of the truck you ask , well I like to think that they may have been a bit too shocked at first to help or try to get my dad to stop that changed after they saw me dragged through the first mud puddle when they started banging on the window to get my dads attention and he sped up a bit .....(in his defense we had been banging on windows all day to get him to race through mud puddles )

A quick jerk forward sent me into a second mud puddle where my jeans slid off my mud slicked frame leaving me sitting bare assed in a mud puddle as my jeans continued onwards .

My dad finally noticed something was amiss as he saw swamp girl staggering across the mud puddle crying and screaming not so much a person as a vaugely human proportioned pile of gray mud and a ragged fannel shirt and a pair of Grey converse all stars and not much else .

After making sure I was okay and reuniting me with my jeans my dad pulled out his spare pack of Marlboros from my breast pocket moving them to his breast pocket and gave me his bear to finish off as I sat up front with him .

My stock in the circle of young kids suddenly shot through the rough not only had I been dragged behind a truck and lived but I had been allowed to drink and while it tasted horrid I walked around with that beer all night .

We of course had to explain the scratches , bumps and bruises to mom when we got back as well as the sunburn , mosquito bites and my new
pet scorpion in a beer bottle (that mysteriously was lost somehow when it was out of my sight ...curse you mom ) we of course gave mom the abridged version ...and all was fine with the world until I walked past mom into the house poped open the fridge door and opened a beer and took a sip ......

To say mom was not amused is a understatement
me and dad were in the dog house for weeks !