A bug in my skort

August 13, 2016

First off, I should clarify the definition of a skort for those of you fashion novices.

A skort looks like a skirt, but it has shorts built in underneath.

It’s a handy way to maintain your modesty when you want to play with your kids at the park or chase after the stack of oranges your son knocks down in the grocery store.

There really aren’t many downsides to a skort.

Until you are walking along minding your own business, headed through a parking lot to a work meeting, and suddenly you feel a burning pain directly below your belly button.

It takes a few seconds to register what is going on.

As you grope inside your britches you ask yourself some questions:

“Is my zipper pinching me?”

“Do I have a needle in my waistband?”

“Am I dying?”

You are now standing in the middle of a busy parking lot with your hand down the front of your pants.

You don’t care, because seriously, it hurts!

And then it hurts again, a little lower.

And that’s when it hits you. There is something other than your own body that is alive down there.

You scream a little. If people weren’t looking at you before, they are now.

And it’s not a self-conscious thing where you wonder if anybody noticed. There are people stopped in their tracks, full-on staring at you.

Somewhere in the recesses of your mind you know you should make light of it, try to play it cool.

But there is a bug in your pants, and now you can feel it moving. And it just bit you again! There is no such thing as composure at this point.

Now, if you’d been wearing a skirt, you could have fluffed the front a bit, done a little wiggle, and you and the bug would be free of each other.

But you’re not wearing a skirt. You’re wearing a skort – a fact that you forget momentarily as you begin shaking the front of your clothing, which succeeds in forcing the terrified bug down by your right thigh.

Where it bites you again. Twice.

I say bite rather than sting because when I finally found the poor fellow it did not appear he was a bee.

He wasn’t entirely identifiable at that point, but I think he was some sort of small fly or flying ant.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

By now I’m batting senselessly at my inner thigh, my access blocked by the skirt portion of my skort (try to keep up, this is important).

Because another thing about wearing a skort is, it’s hard to get in there. Discretion is kind of the point. If the shorts were easy to pull up, it would defeat the purpose.

I had only one option. I lifted up my skirt and dug wildly inside the leg of the shorts beneath, groping towards the burning spot on my leg.

Finally I found the offending creature and slapped and squished and grimaced as I felt it turn to mush between my fingers.

And when it was over, after I’d examined the unlucky chap smeared on my hand and unceremoniously rubbed his remains on the ground, I finally acknowledged my audience.

The whole thing probably took less than 60 seconds, but what a show!

I smiled awkwardly, gave the onlookers a little wave, a little laugh, and said, “Bug. In my skort. It’s like a skirt, with shorts built in…”

This article first appeared in the Lewistown News-Argus and the Sidney (Mont.) Herald on August 13, 2016.