Mystery Pants

This morning, I pulled a pair of workout pants out of my freshly-laundered stack of workout clothes and put them on.

They didn't seem familiar. At all.

I have two similar pairs, which I purchased together a few months ago. One is plain black and the other is plain black with little zippers in the bottom sides of the legs. I looked through the stack and located the plain black ones. So I wasn't wearing them. The ones I had on did not have zippers. I checked. Three times.

So where did these come from? My mind raced.

I'm fanatical about my laundry. I start it religiously every Thursday evening as soon as I get home. I have all my kids' clothes (and mine) in rotation, and, as soon as anything stops working--gets too small or ruined--it goes out of rotation. I know very well what clothing all members of my family have right now. I knew my older daughter did not have pants like this, because I've watched her supply of pants dwindle down as she's grown this year to only jeans plus one pair of nice black slacks.

And those were hanging on my shower door to dry. These were not nice black slacks. More like leggings.

My younger daughter is eight years old and skinny as a rail. Some of her clothes are still size 6X.

I have not brought any old clothes like this from the past into my rotation.

I have not gone shopping for workout clothes recently.

Did I pick them up at the gym somehow?

The idea of picking up someone else's workout clothes at the gym seemed remote. I mean, there are a lot of other pants around, but people are wearing them! That I could accidentally pick up some pants someone was not wearing seemed really odd. The only opportunity for that seems like it would be when I gather up my own clothes and stuff them into my gym bag after my shower.

But whenever I enter the shower, I always look at the floor where I lay my stuff, because, more likely than not, there will be a big hair clump or something I'll want to avoid. (I wish my gym would hire a different janitor.) That I wouldn't notice a pair of black pants sitting there on the floor seemed really remote. Like, impossible.

Could someone at the gym have accidentally stuffed them in my bag while I was drying my hair?

I asked my husband if he knew anything. He said he did not. "You bought them and forgot," he offered. As I am not suffering from Alzheimer's, I rejected that option completely. I asked my daughter, and she denied borrowing anything like the pants I had on. She said she could not imagine how I had obtained them, either.

The pants seemed a little tight but not too bad. I just really did not think I had ever worn them before. And I just could not figure out how they got into my laundry at home.

It is April Fool's Day, but, still!

I located my husband alone in the library. "You had another woman in the house," I said to him, "and she left her leggings here in her hurry to leave."

He laughed out loud. Loudly! And long.

That was somewhat reassuring, but, still, the pants remained a mystery.

I went back to folding clothes until it was time for me to leave for the gym.

Then, I went into the bathroom to check the pants label. "Green Soda," it said, which heightened the suspense. I pulled the other tag straight so I could read it. "Size 7/8."

They were my baby girl's pants!

I took them off and carefully folded them and put them in her pile, hoping she wouldn't notice how stretched out they were.

I guess the good news is that I could fit into her pants, even for a minute.

And may all April Fool's jokes played on me be played by myself!