From one of my fanatically loyal readers:

Your blog seems to have turned into a series of quotes from other works. How about some exciting happenings from a MplsGuy? Golf? baseball trips? curling? clipping your toenails? Give me something to work with here.

I know, I know. Coupled with the almost complete lack of activity in my life of late, I seem to have lost sight of the "spark" which fueled my early tales, resulting in a long absence from blog-postery. But here, I've got one for you:

It's been raining in Minneapolis. A lot. Lots and lots of rain, for a long time. The other night, it didn't stop raining until well into the morning; I know, because I was at work, all night, watching it. This morning, at 13:32:15 GMT/Zulu, while I was walking toward the grocery store, I slipped in some mud. During my recovery convulsion, my pants underwent a sudden and near-total structural dissociation. The epicenter of the event was located in the leftern quadrant of the crotchal sector, and the damage, quite apart from what may be exhibited in the classic "hull breach" scenario, was manifest in a series of three extensive gashes, rent in the woven fiber. The first, and most devastating, was a 32.4cm ventilation, running adjacent and parallel to the existing Zippered Evacuation Portal, extending from the bottom of the reinforced fastening band down to the taintal nadir. This primary fissure was accompanied by mirrored bilateral apertures, 11.1cm in length for the distal aperture and 11.7 for the proximal. Each fissure also featured extensive nodal involvement. Please examine the attending diagram - I've made use of an elaborate digital imaging technique to provide for "dye contrast", as it were.

Aftermath. Following the event, I aborted my grocery store mission, pulled my jacket low over my blasted trousal landscape, and re-crossed the elementary school yard in which the event had occurred. Given the severity of the incident, I was willing to risk apprehension by the pederast police for strolling around a playground in what could be described as "pants" only by a considerable leap of the imagination, in order to arrive at home more directly. To my benefit, given the early hour, I was able to avoid contact with other humans, juvenile or otherwise, and my presence was noted only by the scores of anonymous eyes following my progress from upstairs windows. On top of everything, the offending garment was my prized pair of Union Line blue jeans, which I was so proud of because I could be sure that they weren't assembled by tiny Bangladeshi hands. So much for fair labor practices. Having refreshed my wardrobe, I did eventually make it to the grocery store, but to one in the opposite direction - I was keen on avoiding possible witnesses to the catastrophe.