The Slice: Your clothes don’t always cooperate

The Slice asked for stories of wardrobe malfunctions.

And once again, this column’s smart, good-looking readers came through.

“A few years ago, while showing a dog in Lewiston, I was almost all the way around the ring when my pantyhose suddenly rolled down over my hips and pinned my upper thighs together,” wrote Barbara Bittner of Spokane Valley.

Fortunately, she was able to come to a stop. But then the judge walked down the line, looked at the dogs and barked, “Let’s take them around one more time.”

Bittner nearly fainted. “But I sucked it up and kind of shuffled around the ring.”

This was complicated by the fact she was showing a whippet with a wide-open gait. Shuffling wasn’t really the called-for stride. “By that time my legs were bound together almost at my knees.”

Cheney’s Mary Brown Williams experienced a clothing mishap in a more prosaic setting. “While bending over the dairy case at my local market, the elastic snapped and my panties went south,” she wrote. “I did a knee bend, picked them up, put them in my purse, took my cheese and walked away. I never looked around.”

When Mike Bentson was 7, he was the catcher on a T-ball team. “Catchers were required to wear a cup,” he wrote.

But one day before a game, the special support strap that the cup fit into could not be found. “So rather than be late, I stuffed it in the front of my briefs.”

That worked OK for a while. But while running the bases, rounding third and heading home, the cup slid out of his briefs and down his pants leg and onto the field in full view of everyone watching the game.

Liz Schatz was swimming at a California beach on an outing with her church youth group when a wave pulled her under.

“It seemed that I was being tossed in the surf forever and I was thinking these may be my last moments on earth,” she wrote.

Then, just as suddenly, the wave released her. “I jumped to my feet, shot my hands in the air and shouted something to the effect that I was ALIVE!”

But what everyone noticed was that her swimsuit bottom was down around her ankles.

Steve McCormick was already in his seat on an airliner when a young man wearing ridiculously low-rise pants boarded. Mr. Low Pants reached up to an overhead bin and his trousers fell down. “Served him right,” said McCormick.

Janet Nead was on a moving walkway in the crowded Denver airport when she realized her half-slip was down around her ankles.

And Debbie Nedrow was working as a teacher’s aide at a local middle school when she walked from the restroom into a crowded lunchroom with her skirt tucked into the back of her pantyhose, revealing her purple panties.

The list goes on an on. Thanks to all who shared stories.

“Today’s Slice question: What five movies would you pick for an Essence of Summer film festival?