Careful Where You Sit

I'm going to take a leaf out of CraigD's book and tell a tale relating to a job interview.

I live in a part of the Netherlands referred to as the randstad, a heavily populated, heavily industrialised region encompassing Amsterdam, Den Haag (the Hague), Rotterdam, Leiden, and Utrecht.
Public transport between these cities is excellent by any standards, and so it is very common to live in one city and work in another.

In February 2006, I accepted an invitation to speak with my current employer on the outskirts of Utrecht.

So I hopped on my bike and off I went, to the central train station in my city and caught the half hour train ride to Utrecht, where I then caught a bus from the train station to the office.
All went reasonably well, and soon enough the time came for me to make the return journey home.

By now it was late in the afternoon, and the bus stop for the trip back to Utrecht station was crowded with students from the local school and workers from the dozens of businesses in the surrounding area.

I climbed aboard, and made my way to the one remaining free seat almost at the back of the bus.
Weary from an intensive interview in a foreign language, I flopped into the seat with the full force of all my weight.

I had not paid attention to the (airplane like, retractable) arm rests in the seat....

...RIIIIIIIIIIIP...

With a sinking heart I instantly realised, but yet could not believe, what I had just done.
I had caught the armrest of the seat in the pocket of my trousers as I dropped into the seat, tearing my trousers clean open along the seam of my right leg, from my waist right down to my knee.
It instantly occured to me how mocking laughter and sniggering knows no language boundaries....

I then had to endure the following: a 25 minute bus ride, 30 minute train ride (in first class with the hugo boss brigade, no less), followed by a 15 minute cycle home, with my underwear and (rapidly beginning to bruise) right leg on full display hanging out of my tattered pants.

To this day can not visualise what I must have looked like to the other commuters and passers by, a chubby little Irishman, up on a bike, fully suited and booted in his interview finery, except for the right trouser leg which was flapping in the breeze as he peddaled furiously home with a face blood red from a cocktail of anger and embarrassment.

ET's (my wife) face when I walked through the door, vomiting expletives in every direction, was a sight to behold.

So, careful where you sit, eh?

P.S. Writing this has just flooded my memory with more (,literally dozens of) incidents where I've made a total pillock of myself in front of others. I may just scribble more down sometime.