My corduroy pants are never so loud as they are at work.

I walk around in the closed stacks and a zipping sound whispers from between my legs. My thighs don't ordinarily rub together, I am generally thought of as 'just a little bit of a thing,' but wearing corduroy, everyone can know the joys of thigh friction.

I think about how wearing corduroy would translate into the food service industry, where 'Waiter's Ass' runs rampant for both sexes, and how everyone I've ever known waiting tables, including me, carries either talcum powder or a tube of cortisone in their bags. Don't leave home without it! (FYI- this is when you are cruising around at high speed in a hot, often moist environment, and your butt cheeks rub together in the most unpleasant way. Eventually, after hours of this, a red, raw rash will crop up and cause the worst kind of pain and itch you would wish on your most foul enemy.) I think that polyester is the best fabric for that job, based on my personal experience, because it stretches when you do and if you spill some hollandaise on yourself, you can just wipe it off. So no cords while waiting tables.

I also think about this obnoxious fat kid in sixth grade named Brooks. He was loud. He farted and then shook with laughter, every time. He was a friend to no one. He made fun of everyone for any reason. I can't think of a single person who even pretended to like him.

But he did wear these blue cords, and he was big enough so that his thighs scraped together audibly when he walked. There were rumors flying around that he had run to catch the bus and his pants went up in flames because of the furious rubbing of fabric between his legs. I wanted to believe this was true so much that eventually, I did. Brooks was fond of calling me names. "Chicken Wing, Chicken Little, Turkey Neck." Anything that called to mind a small, scrawny, helpless animal. I loathed him.

Even though the fabric of those cords gave in to the tremendous pressure and blew out two bagel sized holes that could be seen if you bent over and looked just under his butt cheeks, he still wore them. I don't know why.

Sometimes, I wonder what those pants of his smelled like.