is that I never forget to zip them up. Since I started working here a few months ago, I've expanded my "work pants" collection by a couple of pairs of pants. 80-85% of them (or at least the ones I wear 80-85% of the time) have a button on the inside of the waistband, along with one or two on the outside followed by a zipper in the front. This leads to embarrassment about 50% of the time I wear them. In other words, I forget to zip them up. I had this problem at my last job MAYBE once a year. For those of you math wizards out there, my current rate is more like 2 times per week (4.25 times in a 10 day period).
It's not that I don't know that there's a zipper there. But by the time I button and button and button and sometimes belt, it's hard to remember the zipper. Especially since I want to spend as little time as possible in the restroom. So there I go, back to my desk, sometimes all the way home, and it's not until I "go" at home do I realize that I likely embarrassed myself for 1/2 a day at work and on the train ride home. Retro-grade embarrassment is almost worse than actual embarrassment because when it's reflective like that, you imagine all the worst things rather than the small (or huge) amount of embarrassment that occurs when you KNOW something embarrassing is happening.
Or maybe I should be thinking more positive thoughts. Rather than being mortified all alone when I figure out what I've done, I should be proud that I got away with indecent exposure all day without a fine.
retrograde embarrassment. fantastic turn of phrase.
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