Hypothetically aghast

By far the most bizarre thing I have witnessed is a phenomenon in Chinese babywear known as "open crotch pants". Two days after we arrived in China my friend, Jenn, mentioned the existance of such a garment and enlightened me on the purpose as well. I thought she was joking.

She was not.


The ease of bodily fluid elimination that these trousers enable is a bit disconcerting. I mean, hypothetically, a mother (sensing that her one year old needs to urinate), could hypothetically squat down near some shopping carts inside a store, allowing her child to urinate directly on the floor, without even needing to pull the child's pants down. This, of couse, would never happen. Ever. Because that would be just disgusting! And even if that did hypothetically happen just as I was exiting the escalator my jaw most certainly would drop open and my eyes would pop out of my head. I would be so appalled by what I had just witnessed that I would contemplate taking a picture. I would decide against the Kodak moment and instead send a quick text message to my husband and my friend proclaiming my disgust. And then the parents might think it's strange that I'm staring at them and give me the evil eye as if I'm the one that's doing something out of the ordinary.

And I also suppose that hypothetically later that same day, I could be inside a children's toy and clothing store and there could be another child sporting open-crotch pants. And I suppose that it is hypothetically possible that this child also embraced the call of nature right there on the floor in the middle of the clothing racks and his parents continued shopping while the shop assistant reached around the corner for a mop to clean it up. Because I suppose hypothetically this sort of thing could happen on a regular basis every day if kids wore pants with an open crotch. It could hypothetically happen on the sidewalks, near the playground, in the shops. And then those open crotch pants babes could hypothetically sit with their bare butts (and more) right on the same McDonald's table bench for lunch or carousel horse orWal-mart shopping cart as my child does.

It could happen. Hypothetically.