In 1969, at age 20, I walked down to a bus stop in Hermosa Beach to catch a bus to get to work; it was about 11 a.m. and my shift started at noon.
Shortly before I got to the bus bench I split the side seam in my slacks!
Fortunately I was able to sit on the bench and wait; the bus came a few minutes later. And it stopped near a men’s clothing store, where I bought another pair of pants and continued on my way to work. This was more funny than anything else; thankfully nobody–well, probably nobody–saw me with the seam in my slacks torn like that!
Post here incidences of your clothing tearing where/when you didn’t need it to–an incident about 50% embarrassing and 50% funny, or like that. 
:o 
Once when working tech crew at three in the morning with a half dozen other guys, after climbing up into a wall recess to remove a striplight, I knelt down to put upward pressure on the light to make it easier to unscrew. When the other guy had unscrewed the bolt, I put my left leg out and proceeded to lift (properly, with my legs) the big strip light. Riiiiip. There goes my crotch. I had about an eight inch tear right down my crotch, starting at the bottom of the zipper and ending right near my anus.
Luckily, I was wearing my tighty whities.
I shrugged and finished striking the show.
Ahh, those were the days.
In my freshman year of high school, I split my shorts during Gym class. I was incredibly skinny, and I guess my bony ass just pushed right through. I was playing basketball, and crouched down to pick up a ball and RIP, my tiny 14-year-old ass was exposed to my whole class. Luckily, I chose to cry like a baby, making everyone too embarrassed to make fun of me.
The bra-clip on my two-piece bathing suit broke once, when I was bending over to pick something up. Gave a show to those close by.
My hubby took me to a party when we were dating. We were out on the dance floor and he was shakin’ it. His pants gave out BIG time, right up the rear seam. He more or less backed out of the room. We laughed all the way home.
Last year when wandering the globe I had an accident in Copenhagen where I ripped my jeans. The right side was accross the leg high on the leg but just below the backside and on the left side it was inner leg, smaller but nearer the crotch.
I debated buying a new pair but the decided the money would be better in my pocket. A week later I spontaenously jumped on a Contiki tour and spent the next couple of weeks trekking around the UK and Ireland, all the time the rips getting bigger and bigger, until finally I was forced to buy a new pair.
It ended up being good for my ego however, with several of the girls on thr trip expressing their dissatisfaction with my decision to get rid of the torn pair…
I used to work in the kitchen of a Dairy Queen. Once when I was cleaning up I bent down to pick up a napkin. Soon as I bent down, I heard a loud rip, there was a 10 inch rip in the crotch of my pants. Being the only guy of the 5 people working made it even more embarassing. I actually stapled my pants (VERY carefully) and continued working for 3 more hours.
I was working at the record [yes, record] store and the manager (standing in front of the counter) asked me to get some paperwork from behind the counter. I knelt down to the files, and as I stood up, my nametag caught on the overhang on the counter. I tore open the left side of my dress, revealing everything from armpit-level to the lower ribcage (thank gawd I had on a brand new bra - black lace, oh great). He turned redder than I did, and let me go home early that day.
mblackwell - you are a BRAVE man.
One night, when I was in the army, I was standing guard at an isolated - but ground-level and exposed - post. I was passing the time in the best way a soldier can, which is by scratching my… nether regions. Unfortunately, it seems I was too diligent in my task, as suddenly, without warning, my fraying belt tore at the buckle. This would not have been a serious problem if it had not been for three factors:
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I was wearing pants about six sizes too large (not having to open the fly buttons can save you valuable seconds).
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I was no wearing any underwear. For medical reasons, of course.
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The duty officer could wander by any minute.
It seems thatit is times like this which test the mettle of a true soldier, which seperate the 19-year-old men from the 19-year-old boys. Cooly, I reached into my web gear and took out a pair of pliers, a razor blade, some electrical tape (of course) and some wire. Working quickly, I sewed my belt together into some thing that held my pants up. Sort of.
I stood there the rest of my watch petrified that someone would start shooting at me. It was not fear of death, you see. It was the knowledge that if I found myself crouching, crawling and rolling, I’d be charging the enemy bareassed.
Not a pleasent thought.
I was playing on a playground, and I lifted one leg much too hugh, and the inside seam of my shorts ripped all the way up to the center seam in the middle.
When I was 13 years old I dove into the swimming pool at school from a spring board. It was a perfect dive except for the fact that my shorts slid right off as I entered the water because I had one of those mothers that believe in buying clothes larger so you will not outgrow them. Of course, that started a game with the other kids not giving me back my trunks. My last image looking back as I ran into the locker rooms was another kid wearing my bathing suit on his head, like a hat.
Now that I think about it I do not remember whether I was terribly embarrassed or just awfully embarrassed. I do remember with terror how I felt when bigger kids held me under water and I could not breathe and felt like I was going to drown. That was awful. I guess losing my trunk wasn’t as terrifying when compared to that (and it only happened once while the bigger kids tried to drown me daily)
I was a student & going home to visit my mom, so I put on my least scruffy pair of jeans. I was in a hurry to catch the train … and slipped on the stairs … and landed on my backside. Got up & rushed doorwards to discover that it felt a little bit drafty - I’d torn a crescent rip in the base of both sides of the jeans backside - but since I was running late, & I was wearing knickers, went home anyway (to the “can’t dress herself properly, are you eating ok” speech despite having actually tried to wear vaguely decent clothes!). Not really embarrassing (although I did wonder how clean the train seats were before sitting on them…) but definitely one of those cases of the universe thinking to itself - “what can we do to Fiona today?”
I was in the orchestra for a HS production of “The Sound of Music”. A friend of mine cast as the eldest son needed a blue pair of dress slacks for the first scene the children were in. I lent him a pair of mine since we were both about the same build: tall and super-skinny. Not wearing them very often, I forgot to mention to him that the zipper lock on the fly didn’t work so well.
During the first public performance, Capt. von Tropp whistled for his children. The six kids (yeah, we couldn’t cast all seven) all trotted out and lined up like an military unit. Everyone in the audience was laughing. At first, we thought it was just the absurdity of the scene. Then I looked up from playing and saw that his fly was wide open! Fortunately for him, he didn’t go “commando”. But we did get a good view of his bright white "Fruit of the Loom"s.
Playing on the slide in the first grade, I kept hearing a little “riiip” every time I ran up the slide steps. When the bell rang and everybody ran for the building, my skirt was suddenly around my ankles. Somehow in the melee no one saw me. When I got inside, waistband clutched in my little hand, I calmy asked the nurse for a safety pin and went about my day.
I was once at the beach swimming, and nobody was around, so i secided to go bare. I slipped off my shorts, and tied the shorts to one ankle. When the time came to leave the water-suprise!-they had slipped off and were somewhere on the bottom. After a few unsuccessful dives, I gave up searching for them-meantime a few people had gathered at the far end of the beach. Somehow I was able to get out of the water, and make it to my towel-I made it home with the towel wrapped around my waist.
I was wearing a pair of shorts and the top of a
two piece bathing suit when I bent over in a
store to get an ice cream out of a standing
freezer. The back of my top flew open and it
almost fell off. I caught it just in time,
and put the T-shirt I was holding on.
The owner was facing me, and I could see him
blushing. I don’t know how much he actually
saw, but at 32AA, there isn’t much to see.
I was about 16 and was babysitting 2 kids, a brother and sister. I took them to the busy park across the street from their house. Mind you, I was wearing one of my older, scruffier, snugger pairs of jeans. While playing on the playground set with them I heard a rippping noise – and checked to find a HUGE tear across my backside. I told the girl to get ther brother – we were going home. And she obligingly called to him – “We’re going home! Scarlett ripped her jeans!” Oh, and did I mention that I was wearing a baseball shirt with my name across the back in big red letters?
I was watching the “Golden Girls” halftime show during an FSU basketball game. The “Golden Girls” is a student (female) dance troop – many universities have them.
On this particular day they unveiled a brand new costume. A one-piece jump suit of a nearly reflective gold color.
About half way through the number, one of the girls bends over in such a way that the entire backside splits out of the costume. From mid-thigh to halfway up her back is protruding from the gaping hole. (BTW, she was wearing cute little white panties.)
She immediately straightens up, reaches behind her to hold the costume together as best that she can, runs to the sideline, and sits down to hide her backside.
Once the routine ends, the other girls come over, offerring whatever support they can through their giggling and laughter. The other girls form a circle around the embarrassed dancer and begin walking her to the exit.
At which point she panics and runs from the “protection” offered by her friends – giving everyone in the arena an encore performance!
The university retired the uniforms after only one “showing”.
Well, my ripped clothing story isn’t that amusing- split the crotch of my pants while working at Egghead, but it was a small and well-placed split, allowing me ample coverage to walk out of the store and return home for a change of clothes- but upon returning, my District Manager told me the story of some other salesman’s travails…
It seems that this guy- let’s call him Bernie- was none too fashionable; in fact, he wore old plaid polyester slacks.
Bernie was trying to help a mother and her young child in the purchase of some software. In order to better explain the software, Bernie decided to show it to them on the nearby computer where it was installed. So Bernie lifted the child from the computer seat he was on and sat down to begin his sales pitch.
Did I mention the child was very young? Young enough to be beginning toilet training? At that stage where all chairs look like toilets?
Yep, the child had wet himself, and Bernie found himself sitting in a small pile of urine. Bernie, ever calm and cool, called someone else over to finish the sale, while he scooted himself into the back room (thankfully, the chair had rollers).
Bernie removes his pants and washes the offended area out best he can, and then proceeds to wash the chair. It starts getting busy out front, and amid guffaws over Bernie’s predicament, the other employees ask him to hurry up so that they don’t feel as swamped.
Well, Bernie wasn’t feeling thrilled about going out onto the floor in pants with a huge wet stain on the bottom, so he grabs the blow dryer.
A note for those unfamiliar with shrink-wrap machines: the machine invariably had an industrial-strength hand-held blow dryer nearby. The idea was to loosely wrap the package in plastic, then use the blow dryer to cause the plastic to shrink until it made a tight seal.
So Bernie proceeds to try and blow-dry his pants with this industrial-strength blow-dryer. Might I remind you that he wore polyester slack? Yep, that’s right- it didn’t just dry his pants. It burned a teacup-sized hole right in the ass of the pants.
Needless to say, Bernie left work early that day.
Not quite a tear-in-the-clothes story, but…
Back in the very early ‘80s (I was 19 or so), in the days when ultra-tight, sprayed-on jeans were the fashion, I went to Knotts Berry Farn with some friends. We rode the water ride (the name of it escapes me), and come out entirely soaked. The power or suggestion hard at work, I found that I needed to use the bathroom immediately. After much struggle, I succeeded in getting the jeans down off the hips. Unfortunately, I was not so lucky getting them back up. Any women out there who has tried to struggle into too-tight jean will appreciate how much more difficult it is when they are wet and you aren’t even in a position to lie on your back. Eventually, one of my friends ran to the gift store to get a pair of souvenir shorts, allowing me to exit the ladies’ room about 30 minutes after I went into it.
Rode my bicycle a mile to work wearing a pair of pants that had the rear seam entirely ripped out. Didn’t notice until I got to work.