Complete Pants

Brought to you by our good friends across the pond.

Pants is a U.K. slang term which means, essentially, crap. As in, "Working weekends is pants, man." Or "Michael Jackson? Complete pants." Easy, right? Feel free to toss your pants into conversation immediately.

More fun with pants: Play the Pants Game! Either in speech or online, replace a crucial noun in a sentence/movie line/whatever with the word "pants." For example: "Pants: the final frontier." Or: "To be or not to be? That is the pants." Or "Damn the torpedoes, full pants ahead!" Or "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a pants." Provides minutes of fun and laughs -- hours if alcohol is involved.

We all have our pants issues. Sister-san's college roommate Fritzie became helpless with laughter anytime she heard the phrase "pants are falling down." And I’m OK with "pants" but not with "slacks." "Slacks" is right up there with "moist" and "davenport" among words I'd rather not hear or say. "Slacks" is pants, man.

And speaking of pants, the zipper on my favorite black ones gave up the ghost this week -- discretely, fortunately for me and everyone nearby. RIP, black pants. Time to go shopping. Aw, pants.

Continuing the clothing theme, try the Shoes Game. Whenever you hear a love song (which ought to be about every 11 seconds with VD right around the corner), substitute "shoes" for "you." Or encourage the Girl Scouts in the back of the van to do so. If you dare. Can you hear it? "Shoes light up my life, shoes give me hope . . ."

You're welcome.

Today around the world: February 11 is the Anniversary of the Lateranensi Pacts in the Vatican City State.