So I'm in the Dressing Room at Banana Republic...

..trying on the Townsend Chino. Because I'm all about the pleated trousers. Yes, despite the warnings from teensy-nutted fellows who write for fashion magazines that wearing anything other than flat-fronts is the surest path to self-inflicted celibacy. Bring it on, I say. Bring it the fuck on.

Anyway, I'm trying on these pants and something catches my eye on the floor. I look down and, amidst the pins and collar cardboards, is something small and purple and mesh, curled up and lying in the corner. I give this ball of material a little kick, and a pair of women's underwear lightly unravels. Thong underwear, to be precise. On the dressing room floor.

So I bent over and picked it up and held it in front of me, curiously. And after a few minutes [or, it could have been hours, I guess... this was a nice pair of underwear] I look in the three-way mirror before me and see three different angles of me holding some stranger's purple thong that I'd just found on the floor. And I get so skeeved I decide to just toss it back where I found it.

That's when I heard a knock at the door.

"Hello?"

A female voice answered, almost whispering. "I think I left something in there."

"Huh?"

Her voice maintained its hushed tone. "I was in this dressing room a couple of minutes ago and... I think I left something in there."

The Townsend Chinos secured around my waist, I cracked the door. A fairly attractive black girl, probably no more than 20 years old, smiled a sort-of embarassed smile.

"I'm so sorry," she said, her eyes hitting the floor. "There they are. Can I..."

I nodded and opened the door. She shuffled in, bending over quickly and snatching up the thong, sticking it in her pocketbook. She was wearing skintight Bongo jeans and I assume a shirt of some kind... my eyes never made it up that far.

"I'm so sorry," she repeated. "Thank you."

And just like that, she was gone.

And I stood there, in a cloud of her perfume, waiting for Ashton Kutcher to pop out from behind the mirror.

He didn't. So I took off the Townsends and put my own pants back on. And then I just looked around. Wondering what in the hell she could have been trying on that required her to remove her underwear. Or was it just a back-up pair that inadvertently fell out of her pocketbook? Or had some intense dressing-room sex finished up shortly before my goofy irish ass ambled in the door?

I wasn't sure. So I put on my coat, paid for the pants, and walked out into the snow and rain.

And about fifteen minutes down Route 3 it hit me.

"Why the hell didn't I pocket those suckers?"