When the back was in the front

When I was nine, my mother bought me two pairs of shorts. One was dark green colour, and the other was dark red. When I first saw them at store, I immediately fell in love with their colours and shape. When I tried them on, they felt perfect on my body.

“I love it, I love it, I love it!”

Seeing my delight and excitement, my mother bought them both.

I started looking forward to wearing these wonderful shorts each morning. In fact, I loved them so much that I even gave them names to cherish their presence more. In my mother tongue, trousers are called zubon. Inspired by the term, I decided to call the green one Zun and the red one Bon.

That autumn, I forgot about all other shorts I had in my closet and wore these new shorts every day to go to school.

“Which one are you wearing today?” My mother would ask me in the morning. “Zun or Bon?”

One day, I went to school with Bon, my beloved red shorts. I spent the morning feeling great wearing my new favourite piece, and when the first break arrived, I went to the washroom.

As I sat down in the bathroom with a smile, however, I realized that something was off. Something was not right with Bon. Then I got it – my dear Bon’s backside was in the front. I had worn my shorts wrong for the whole morning!

Embarrassed, I quickly fixed the issue, making sure that this time, the backside was in the back and the frontside was in the front. When I came out of the bathroom, my overexcitement had calmed down a little. I have never worn my shorts or trousers in a wrong orientation since.