Yes, the zipper. As convenient as they may seem they can also cause a great deal of stress. To me anyway.
Twice in the last week or so I have had very dramatic and stressful zipper incidents.
Incident the first;
I wear jeans to work. Denim. Somewhat thick material, you wouldn’t think that this would be an environment that could cause a lot of conflict with the zipper.
Wrong. I’m finishing up after using the urinal and I go to zip up the fly and I can’t feel the zipper tab thing so I look down and see, nothing…turns out it went and hid itself in the fold of the Y way down in the crotch of the pants??? The tab was inverted so it was pointing downwards and tucked into the material in such a way that I had to try to dig out the tab with my finger nails, except I don’t have any finger nails to speak of, being a male and all. This resulted in me trying to pull the material apart to access the tab. Demin doesn’t stretch all that well and I’m trying to perform this operation with other gentlemen streaming into the bathroom (it was right around lunch time and a meeting had just let out, so there was quite the crowd/audience for this little routine).
I couldn’t get the tab out, the little fucker was WAYYYYY in there, buried. I try to pinch the body part of the zipper that I could see with my big fat-ass fingers and I wouldn’t budge. It was like it had a vandetta against me, kind of like a two year old child when you want them to do a simple task and they make it seem like the world is coming to and end or you’re asking them to carry bucket of water up to the top of Mount Everst when all you really want is for them to just sit down in the shopping cart and stop screaming. Goddamnit.
I resort to nearly attempting to turn the pants inside out (while wearing them) just to reveal as much of the actuall zipper track as possible in order to un-wedge the fucking tab. Fuck.
Finally get the piece of shit freed up after what seemed like 20 minutes, when in reality it was probably only 45 seconds or so. I cannot describe, properly, the rage I was feeling and the almost simultaneous relief when I was actually able to zip up my pants and continue on my way, trying to act like nothing was wrong in the face of the strange looks I was getting. I came close to destroying my pants. I was able to let this incident slide, however since everything worked out in the end.
Then came the second incident a couple of days later;
The Great Winter Coat Zipper Jam
I return home with the family after a stressful, but not as much as usuall, Christmas day with the families. Time to relax and unwind and let the kids play with their presents, unpack the new USB harddrive and get that set up, and watch a movie. This would not happen.
The Zipper Gods would strike again. I had a feeling this might happen again but I never thought it would occur on the same day we celebrate the birth of Christ (whose dear name would come up several times in the upcoming tribulation).
For some reason (I suspect the Zipper Gods and mind control), I placed my car/house keys in the pocket of my winter coat after getting out of the car and zipped said pocket (to forever encapsulate the keys in the confines of the ripstop nylon pocket) and then hang the coat on the coat rack.
Needing the keys to unlock the back door and turn on the Christmas lights I go to retrieve the coat so I can unzip the pocket to get the keys out. Unh!, zipper seems jammed. WTF, it zipped up effortlessly why won’t it unzip in like manner? Close inspection reveals some material got eaten by the zipper. Ok, well, work it back and forth lightly to free it up, no big deal right?
Right?
Isn’t this what you’re supposed to do? Maybe not, since working the zipper back and forth seemed to just promote lots more material-jamming…
Shit, the only thing left to do is use brute force. Not sure if I should go up or down with the zipper (since there was about an inch of up left), both ways had there own evil associated with them so far.
I choose down. With lots of determination and shaking I’m able to work the zipper about half an inch. Apoplexy sets in. Along with yards of material prominently jammed in the zipper.
Fuck, fffuck ffffffuck and Jesus Fucking Christ!!!, all I want to do is get my keys and open the mother fucking door and plug in the holy lights.
Breathe, get a drink of whisky, take a shit, and try again in the morning.
NO!!!, this must be done. I have to conquer the zipper - NOW! Fuck the sane approach, grab the zipper and - YANK! Nothing, YANK HARDER!! BING (without the O). The sound of the zipper tab breaking shatters the silence of explosive ferment (created by the blood rushing through my head causing temporary deafness). I hold in my hand the remnants of zipper tab. OH FUCK, (I wanted to scream at a level that may have alerted the authorities or in the least crack open a time continuum warp and allow me to travel back in time 4 minutes). I held back, for some reason. I think I was running out of energy.
OK, regroup. Let’s evaluate the damage.
Ego; Shot to hell.
Blood pressure; off the charts.
Zipper tab; broken, but possibly salvageable (I have power tools at my disposal and there seems to be enough matal left to work with (think drill and small bit)).
Zipper body; Ok, unbelievably, but stressed.
Coat; Who gives a fuck, I will burn you in the fire pit once/if I retrieve the keys.
Utility knife; Tempting.
The only thing to do at this point is put the zipper handle back on the zipper body by fixing it, right??
This will require the drill and the small bit I referenced above.
I’ll drill another hole in the handle and latch it back onto the zipper body and resume the effort. Then I’ll have a perfectly good coat again with one zipper modified, no problem. It’ll simply be a reminder for years to come of mans’ ability to conquer all. Excellent.
Find drill and bit and wanting to be as expeditous as possible I grasp the zipper handle with my left hand and use my thumb to clamp the handle to the workbench then commence drilling with the drill in my right hand. Applying sufficient pressure to let the twist-bit do its thing but not enough to allow the bit to spin the handle out of my grasp. I just wanted to drill a small hole…
As the bit was working its way through the material, the zipper gods must have woke up and thought, “Looks like he’s succeeding, can’t have that!” and made one last stand (I wish). The bit grabbed the handle, and instantaneously began rotating the handle at 700 rpms As I Was Trying To Hold It. I dropped the drill and grabbed my thumb. “Holy Fuckerballs!!!” The red stuff I saw could have been either blood from my thumb or the rage distorted vision which may have caused everything to appear red at this point. It didn’t matter. This must end now. Immediately.
I run, not walk, through the house down the steps (jumping down the last five steps and landing in a full sliding corner turning sprint) into the basement work room and grab the needle nose vise-grip off the peg board. I have no idea why the thought to use the vise-grips didn’t occur to me earlier or why it occurred at all, but this was going to be the end-all fix, no matter what. I begin to rush back to the scene of the crime but hesitate, for there on the peg board is the utility knife with a brand-new blade in it. I grab it for insurance. Damn you Zipper Gods, I will defeat you post haste and then some!!
Back up to the coat.
(Just to give you an idea of the task at hand, imagine if you will, the last time you happened to glance at a very large person from behind wearing loose shorts pulled up to their chest. All that material wedged up their crack? That’s what I thought of when I would look at this zipper. Material coming from all different directions, converging and then disappearing.)
Clamp vise-grip on to body of zipper. Tug! Won’t budge.
Unhhh! Vise-grip slips off. Re-attach with vengeance. Blood beginning to aggressively flow again. Bleeding on vise-grip and coat. Slippery. Try again with all the energy I could muster and focus all my personal effort on that little tiny mother-fucking, piece-of-shit, cocksucking, bag-licking, weasle-feltching zipper.
AHHHHHH!!! The goddamn thing breaks free, the pocket opens up like the Red Sea, and the keys come flying out like a thousand pigeons being released at a halftime show.
Relief at last. I survey the damage. Looks like the only thing that will need some attention is my thumb. The fucking nylon coat material that was endlessly wedged into the zipper looked untouched. Unscathed. Almost as if to say, “Look, we didn’t even try that hard. Barely broke a sweat. Wait till next time, bub. We will regroup and we will win!!”
“No you won’t fucko, see that fire pit over there? See this utility knife here? I dare you.”