The Pajama Mystery

Kim stood next to the breakfast table, toast in her hand and a puzzled look on her face. She put down her toast and took a good look down at what she was wearing. “My pajama bottoms don’t have a fly.”

I glanced up from my coffee and took a closer look – not that I had ever noticed whether her pajamas had a fly or not. But I did see the back pocket stitched on an area of her pants that I would have noticed, by touch if not by sight.

What happened?

The mystery began the night before. We were watching a movie from Netflix and, as happens too often, we decided to pause it midway and I went downstairs to fix our drinks. About twenty minutes later we noticed that someone had finished off our drinks and we were still a bit thirsty, and so I dutifully went downstairs again.

After that, things get a bit blurry. I remember the movie’s ending. And taking the stairs carefully, the tray of empty glasses in one hand and the banister in the other. Then the usual bathroom stuff. Then waiting in bed for Kim.

I remember hunting around in the dark for pajama tops and bottoms. My pants felt a bit snug, which, I reasoned, might have been from the pretzels. They were a bit short as well, but I was not operating in Analytical Mode, so I shrugged and got back into bed for a pre-sleep cuddle.

In the morning I dressed in my pre-coffee blur and crept out to fix breakfast for my still-sleeping wife. She joined me shortly, and somewhere between juice and toast she realized she was wearing my pajama bottoms.

Exactly how this might have happened remains a mystery. As a good scientist, I will try to recreate the conditions of the phenomenon to see if I can replicate the results. When it comes to mysteries, it’s important to get to the bottoms.