The great American storyteller David Sedaris says a good story needs tension. It needs to raise questions in the readers mind to get their attention, their mind churning, wanting more. And he says, not every question needs to be answered. It’s storytelling.

I was at Beban Park in Nanaimo BC for a workout at the gym. I scanned my gym card as always and turned to go through the door. Now in order for the rest of the story to work, to become something more than Tony is telling us about going to the gym, this definitely need to create some tension in your mind’s eye. Fact is good story telling doesn’t work without it, some ‘Oh my word, then what happened?’. Without that it is a just a pedestrian story about an old man going to gym. So here’s the deal. When I was at home that morning getting ready to go to the gym, I put on a pair of pants. I can remember saying to myself,

“Put on a belt, these are too loose.”

Now I have no idea how Perfectly Sensible Tony lost this debate to Typically Ridiculous Tony, but he did. And out of the house I went car keys in one hand, the forefinger on my right hand tucked into a belt loop at the waist of my pants. I assured myself that would be sufficient. Now as an aside had my wife Mac been home at the time none of this would have happened. Assuredly she knows my secret, the one that is so fundamental to this story and she would have simply insisted that I wear a belt. That said, she wasn’t at home so that she can safely be held clear of any responsibility for what followed!

My secret which I’m afraid I do need share with you now is that for most of my life I have gone commando (something which none of you actually want to know, not my children, not my friends, no one wanted to know but for this story to work, it’s something you have to know).

When I arrived at Beban Park I made sure that my forefinger was once again placed back in the belt loop and and my pants were secure. Now the ticket booth at Beban is staffed with very friendly people both welcoming and encouraging. The scanner they have is notoriously fussy and one has to manipulate the card until the familiar buzz that opens the door into the gym.

“Good Morning Tony, how are you today?”

“Very well, thank you. And you?”

All the while I was moving my free left hand back and forth over the scanner, with no result.

“Keep trying, it’ll work. Has a mind of its own doesn’t it?”

By now there was a lineup behind me, two of whom were elderly ladies, impatient to get to their Aquafit lesson, which they let me know they were late for. I’ve dealt with great pressure in my day, particularly as a criminal defence lawyer, defending contract killers among others but none could bring to bare the pressure I felt in that moment to get through the doorway to the gym.

Crumbling, I threw caution to the wind, turned my hips toward the scanner and took my forefinger out of my pants loop.

‘Oh my word, then what happened?’.

It worked. The buzzer sounded, the door swung open and the two women behind me moved up to the wicket. Oh, and my pants fell to the ground. I was bare from the waist right down to my brand new running shoes. Naked as the day I was born.

And silence.

There was no ‘not seeing’ the impressive bare buttocks which now presented themselves to all who were present. I of course immediately bent over to pull my pants up which in that moment and at a full ninety degrees I suspect presented an indelible, perhaps even scarring image for those in line behind me.

Here’s the thing, the story has no tension if you just think my pants fell down. Big deal, it’s happened to lots of us. Right?! But add one small fact that I most often go commando and we have tension and we have a question.

Which I’m not going to answer.