Pants on Fire

This Blog Post was originally published on adagia.org.

As written yesterday (Ear Shot), my grandfather had some strange encounters when he was a kid just after WW2. Today's story is even more strange than yesterday's, and I'm not 100% sure it really happened. But on the other side, what would be the reason my grandfather would have lied to me?

So, to fully understand everything, you must google "Schnellfeuerhosen" (yes, use the dialect term and don't look at the women showing up). Translated, they would be called fast-fire jeans/trousers. As far as I understood the description of them, you could squat down, and your bare back would be exposed to quickly release the stuff in your intestine. I think they were mostly used for small children switching from diapers to being housetrained (can I say that with children? :) I think you know what I mean). If an accident was to occur, they were a quick way not to ruin the pants.

Apparently, there were two different versions of those pants, the ones I could find via google and the ones where you've got two buttons to undo, which opened a flap. My grandfather was always talking about the ones with the flap.

Now onto the story, one afternoon, my grandfather and his friend were strolling around the small village they lived in and stumbled upon a rocket launcher. Obviously, the oldest one (my grandfather never gave me the exact ages of the people he was around, but he probably was the youngest) thought it might be a good idea to shoot down the church tower.

Since that boy wasn't strong enough to hold the launcher on his shoulder, he held it between his legs, pushed the trigger and luckily missed the church tower. But what happens when a rocket launches? Correct. Fire comes out of the back end, setting the boys' pants on fire as the flap was accidentally opened somehow.

According to my grandfather, he had never seen a boy run that quickly to a nearby pond. Of course, just like in the last story, they scattered not to risk getting caught.