Mystery Pants

As a dog-walker, I spend a lot of time looking at the ground. On the one hand, I am trying to avoid stepping in anything unpleasant. On the other, I am trying to avoid tripping over a deranged, half-blind, half-deaf whippet who is unable (or unwilling) to walk in a straight line.

This means that I see a lot of litter. And dog shit.

Better to see it than not to see it.

But I never cease to be surprised at how many discarded items of clothing I see.

Right now, from my office, I can see a lost glove on the street. Yawn. Everybody loses gloves. That’s just carelessness or bad luck.

For someone to lose a pair of underpants (pictured) there must be a real story.

Whose pants were they?
How did they come off?
Why did they get left behind?

Here’s another pair I found on the same road.

These are not worn grey emergency pants. These are prestigious, name-brand pants (the ones at the top are Calvin Kleins, in case the waistband is unreadable). What fall from grace led to their being cast adrift?

Abandoned single shoes are commonplace in city centres. Staggering screechy lady-drunks lose them falling off kerbs. Bellowing violent man-drunks lose them misplacing a wild kick at a prone rival’s head.

But here is a woman’s leopard print top – the pattern is still just about discernible. Actually I think that's what it is. It could be another pair of pants. Possibly belonging to Tarzan. 

Whatever it is, this has been sat in the gutter at the top of a residential street I often pass along for months. 

What is the history of this lonely garment? How did it end up cast out on the street, never to be returned for? Is that the face of Jesus at the bottom right?

Oh, but that these pants could talk - the stories they would tell us.