Pants

It is with some regret that I must own up to being behind last month's great pants theft. But in a way, I can't help feeling that the end justifies the means. Let me explain.

For the past two weeks - as each individual's stock of pants ran low - we have all been forced to band together, and share our pants with our neighbours. Young and old, male and female, rich and poor, have been united in common need of pants. And have been generous with what little pants they had.

All around us, we see examples of this generosity, as people struggle to hoike up or down the ill-fitting pants given them by their neighbours. On television, the first annual Pantsathon saw celebrities giving up their spare pants for those in greater need, and a number of television documentaries followed the trials of those who tried to do without pants completely. Their ingenuity and perserverance served as a reminder of the indomitable human spirit.

And in an age when social networks are maintained by telecommunication, when the only communities we engage in are online, the pants issue brings it home to us all that in our hour of greatest need, only those geographically close to us can really help - when the problem is as real, as human, as quotidien, as being out of pants.

It also reminds of the uselessness of a single pant. And in the end, isn't that what separates us from the animals?