The moment of stark realization

When you hit a new and completely unforeseen low - as I did last week - there are always points leading up to it.

It shouldn't really take you by surprise. But it's not till the moment passes, and you examine it in retrospect, that you realize that of course you were heading in that direction.

You might think the new low would be the moment you grunted when you bent down to put on your pantyhose.

Or the immediately subsequent suspicion - the kind that raises the hair on the back of your neck - that you now grunt every time you bend over. In the privacy of your home, at work, the gym - wherever.

Do you do this, you wonder? You decide likelihood is high.

It could also be the point at which you recognize that all the way along, in pulling up aforementioned pantyhose, you continue to emit mini-grunts.

Further, it could reasonably be when you become conscious of the fact that, having briefly stopped pulling mid-thigh, the now gathered and twice-mentioned hose are strangulating your leg.

Even though you only bought the damn things - a size big, at that - three weeks ago.

You'd think that any of those would be reasonable points at which to be all, "Oh hell, new low."

And they would.

But the new low does not fully wash over you until mid-morning.

And it does so in the way that, when you are wading in the ocean, knee-deep, a large wave might suddenly overtake you, strong, fresh, and shocking. Although it shouldn't be all that surprising, being that you're in the ocean and all.

The moment of realization hits you while sitting at your desk, in your cube.

It is the instant you think to yourself, "Man, it's so hard to fart in such tight pantyhose."