Smarty Pant(less) or The Empress is Not Wearing Any Pants

Last 'floor-sanding' related story.
Promise.


Late night at new house sanding floors.
Again.
I finished up just past midnight and covered in dust, stood outside my car. I then began to contemplate the mess my dusty self was about to leave on my black seats.
Standing there, a most genius epiphany comes to me: why not just remove my dusty pants and sweater, thus sparing myself cleaning yet another thing? Eureka!
As we are situated far enough from any road to worry about compromised privacy, I remove my pants and sweater (quickly, as its minus ten, brrrr) and roll them in a neat ball, stowing said ball on floor of car. Quite pleased with my incredible cleverness, I hop into the car.
The car that had not been started yet. The car with leather, minus ten degree seats. Yowzahhh!! Really cold seats on nearly bare skin is a shock... although admittedly I can appreciate that had I been born the other gender, things potentially would have been much worse.
After regaining my breath, I embark on my journey home.
I had mapped out a route in my mind that would almost completely bypass town.
And besides, it was well past midnight on a Sunday.
Who'd be out then?
Who indeed would be out then, you ask.
Now its funny you asked that question because I have an answer for that.
I had pulled up to the only set of lights on my oh-so-clever route, smug in the knowledge I was almost there and had not encountered any other vehicles up until this point. Said light had only just turned red, so I waited, heck... I was practically home already. Self, you are a veritable genius.
That is when they pulled up.
A full pick-up load of teenage boys.
As vantage points go, the view from that pick-up looked down onto my pasty, bare legs and the rest of my dusty self. My undies *would* have passed for shorts. That is, had they; A) been a colour other than classic granny panty white B) been worn in mid-Summer rather than mid-Autumn. I willed myself to become invisible. Mantra playing repeatedly in my mind: 'don't look this way don't look this way please do not look this way'. My palms began to sweat along with, ironically enough, the backs of my thighs where I had earlier gotten the cold shock from the leather seat. I recklessly considered blasting through the intersection just to get away as the panic rose. Running a red light its just plain stupid, no matter what time of day it is. In addition to that, this particular intersection has red light cameras set up. Set up at an even more compromising angle than truck idling beside me and seeing as registration of my car is in my husband's name, he would have received a 300 dollar unflattering photograph of his wife covered in dust dressed in a stretched out work t-shirt and granny panties. Not happening. I took all of these factors into consideration and decided to go with potential humiliation as opposed to unflattering expensive photos and possible death.
I held my breath. I could probably roll forward, just a little out of their field of vision, but movement would potentially attract attention.

And that would not be good.

I have never sat at a red light for such a long time. Seconds felt like minutes, and a minute is a long time to stress over impeding discovery and heckling by a gang of teenagers. I willed the light to turn green, I willed myself to transparency, I willed a small explosion to occur across the street. Anything to divert attention away from my direction.

Perhaps, after all, it was my lucky night.
Perhaps it wasn't my time for public humiliation, but by some miracle of the heavens the light eventually turned green... and those teenagers gunned ahead of me through that intersection, leaving me behind.
My granny panty clad behind behind, that is.

this is not me (FYI)