Big Birds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doing the right thing can be so embarrassing you wonder if you should make the effort at all.

While I was playing in a golf tournament the other day I happened to notice the caddy’s fly was undone. Sure that this was not a new fashion statement I was about to discreetly mention the state of his mild undress when I noticed that he was, in fact, going commando. That is a game changer in the honesty department isn’t it? A little startled, I refrained from speaking or even looking in his direction for the remainder of the round. However I could not help thinking that my reluctance to address a simple clothing malfunction reflected poorly on me.

This situation falls into the category of simple social responsibility. You can’t have a poor chap whose waning attention to detail embarrasses a whole field of women golfers or perhaps even makes a few of them swoon, now can you ?

Still, I said nothing.

“Would you want someone to tell you your fly was down,” I asked my husband.

“Yes,” he said. “But not if it is a woman,” he added.

Oh.  Note to self: Tell a different fellow with his fly firmly in place to dial up his free flying friend and have him deliver the news. I have tried that before. But the guy with a properly enclosed package never told him, fearing, I suspect, that the zipless wonder might question why the hell his friend’s eyes were fixed on his nether regions in the first place.

Fact is anything that seems amiss, like an untied shoe lace, or spectacular, like an exposed organ draws the eye to it. N’est-ce pas? Colossal cleavage is a case in point. Even as a practicing heterosexual my attention can be dramatically diverted from a face to a bosom if it is featured prominently enough. But that is an intentional exposure, isn’t it? Undone flies, as a rule, are not.

I have asked others about fly etiquette……to tell or not to tell?

Most women agreed that if it were a straightforward matter they would say something. But, as in my case, if the hapless offender was spurning his tidy whities as well as flying without a safety net they would have done what he hadn’t and kept their traps shut. It’s just sloppy. Unusual fashion statements can be tolerated if not respected. But carelessness is quite another matter.

I have learned you clearly have to judge each case on its own merits. If you feel compassion you must have courage. Help out your fellow human being. You don’t want a lovely charming fellow with his pants undone to look like, well, a pervert, do you? I again went to my closest source for sartorial splendor and asked my husband, whose own fly and that of his sons (must be a family trait) have flown south in the past, if it worried him on those occasions when he neglected to secure himself in.

“Big birds don’t fall out of the nest,” he reminded me smugly. I am not telling him next time. For the rest of you, much as you would before crossing a street, please always look both ways before exiting the house.

Thank you.