Don't forget your pants! (And other rules...)

We have rules in our family. I don't mean the "don't eat mashed potatoes with your fingers" and "don't poke your sister in the eye" kind of rules... I mean life rules. Even before we knew Leroy Jethro Gibbs had rules, we had rules. Our first three rules were:

1. Never push the red button.
2. Never take a shower in an abandoned house.
3. Never walk down a dark alley at night.

More important rules have been added over the years, but none more important (and let me stress that again - NONE more important - than "don't forget your pants."

I know what you're thinking. Those first three rules were life and death. Nothing good ever comes from pushing the red button. The psycho serial killer is always waiting in abandoned houses for teenagers to come and take a shower. And the dark alley at night... well, does that even need explanation?

But really, it all starts with a pretty new but VERY IMPORTANT rule: Please, for the love of God, don't forget your pants! (There is a subsection A to this rule, which is "don't forget your undergarments, especially if you're forgetting your pants"...)

Have you noticed that this is, actually, a problem of epidemic proportions? You can't go anywhere without seeing someone in leggings and no pants. And even if that person is slim and toned (which most aren't), it just isn't pretty. You look at them and think, "Where are your pants?"

By far the most egregious example of this was an Italian woman we saw a number of times (sadly) at Murchison Falls in Uganda. She had on light gray... leggings. Work out pants. Something. They weren't thick, and I think the spandex was past it's prime. She also disobeyed subsection A of this rule, and was 40 pounds overweight. It wasn't pretty. It was scarier than the crocodiles and baboons, in fact.

I have seen leggings in a store with a label that says, "These are not pants!" True story. I figure it's like every other warning in the world, though, and people just tear it off and totally disregard it as some legal warning from a bevy of lawyers. Sadly.

There are twenty-something rules now. But really, if you only obey one, please make it this one. The rest of the world will thank you. Truly.

**NOTE: Fortunately, I have decided not to include any photos in this post. I didn't want to scare you. Go watch Halloween or the Texas Chainsaw Massacre so you'll feel better...