The Chronicles of Barnia

The Split

It doesn't make a sound; not that I hear anyway. But, like the rending of your heart when she tells you she doesn't want to risk compromising your amazing friendship by introducing romance, the feeling is brutal and unambiguous.

My suit pants have just split. On my lunch break.

Time to go easy on the caramel milkshakes.

As I stand up from tying my shoes, I conduct a subtle inspection of the damage. It's worse than I feared; I can actually feel a draft. And I'm in a shopping centre.

A quick scan of the store directory leads me to my salvation: Stitch in Time Alterations. With such a lyrical name, I'm expecting Stitch in Time to be staffed by the von Trapp children. Or perhaps Hanson. Instead, I get a lady who looks like my mate Demetri Constantinides' ever-smiling mother. Without the smile.

The store consists of two sewing machines, a counter and one black curtain that is doing a poor impression of a change room. Mrs Constantinides greets me from her five foot zero vantage point with impassive eyes. I take this as an invitation to begin negotiations.

'Hi. I've split my pants.'

She beckons me to the side of the counter, then takes the torn remains in her hands and pulls them apart. There's the draft again, but now it's adequately counterbalanced by the heat of my EXTREME HUMILIATION. Demetri's mum talks in short bursts as though she's a surgeon who's just opened up my chest. 'Bad tear. Two days to fix. Thirty-five dollars.'

I spin around to face her. 'I can't leave my pants here for two days. What am I supposed to wear back to work?'

She shrugs, turns away and sits down at her sewing machine, apparently unaware that I am continuing to exist as a potential customer, or even just a fellow human being.

How does this woman still have a business?

'Can you do a patch-up job while I wait?'

She doesn't look up. 'Yes. Fifteen minutes. Sixty dollars.'

'What?! It's thirty-five for the full repair.'

She shrugs again.

She's an extortionist. A criminal mastermind. That's how she still has a business.

I take my pants off and hand them to her from behind the curtain. In exchange, she gives me a pair of purple tracksuit pants that, from the size of the waistline, may or may not have belonged to Shrek. 'Put these on. Wait out here.'

Is this a joke?

'Why can't I just stay behind the curtain?'

'It's a change room. Customers need it to change.'

The pants are so enormous I feel like I'm on the starting line of a potato sack race. Trying to ignore the fact I'm wearing communal clothing (two words that should never be uttered together), I lean on the counter like I'm at a hipster bar, effecting a bored, do this all the time kind of look in case I see anybody I know.

And, because the universe hates my guts, Jennifer from Finance walks straight towards me. Now, I don't really mind looking stupid in front of most people; if I did, I'd do quite a lot of minding. But Jennifer from Finance is an exception. Smart, funny, and just a little bit terrifying, she's the reason I learned how to format an Excel spreadsheet. If Billy Joel was here, he'd write a song about her. And I'd play it on repeat for the rest of my life.

'Barney, what are you doing?' Her concern, though mingled with horror, fills me with the hope of salvation.

'I split my pants.'

She throws her hand to her mouth and I wait for the inevitable, mocking laughter. 'Oh, you poor thing,' she says.

Hang on a minute.

'Is there anything I can do to help?'

'Ask Danny Ocean over there to go easy on me.'

Jennifer laughs.

A genuine laugh! To an obscure and not particularly relevant Ocean's 11 reference!

'Fair to say you're about to get stitched up,' she says.

Amazing! We're a bona fide comedy duo!

I continue the routine. 'True, but I do get to model the latest fashion from Big Man's Pants 1987 collection.'

Jennifer laughs again, which makes this the greatest lunch break of my life.

When Mrs Constantinides' shakedown is complete, Jennifer and I walk back to work together, and I try out one of my latest Excel gags: 'I know why they call them cells. Those spreadsheets are always taking me prisoner!'

In the lift, Jennifer drops her security pass. I forget everything that has happened in the past thirty-seven minutes and bend down to pick it up. This time I hear the sound. Very clearly.

I long for alien abduction.

Instead, I feel Jennifer's hand on my shoulder. 'I'll tell Margaret you felt sick,' she says. Her lie is the stuff of love songs and dedications. Billy Joel rides with me all the way home.