I don't know what has happened with my pants.
Usually when I go on holiday I pack way too much underwear (socks particularly, which, of course, you rarely get round to wearing on a beach holiday) and I remember putting together a massive pile of freshly clean underpants fresh out of my dryer. I was sure I'd put them in my suitcase, and I assumed I had unpacked them once here and put them in my underpant drawer, but a couple of days ago I discovered I only had six pairs of pants with me.
It's not a massive inconvenience as I am in my swimming trunks most of the day and only wearing pants at dinner time (underneath my trousers - I am not strange) and I have been able to easily wash the pants in the bath and dry them in the Mauritian heat, but the mystery remains - what happened to all the pairs of pants I thought I had packed?
Did I just put them in a pile and leave them by my washing machine, neglecting to even pack them? Surely this is the least likely explanation. Why would I do that? It would be stupid.
Did someone at airport security have a look through my suitcase and think to him or herself - "Hmmmm, those are a nice load of pants. I wouldn't mind having some pants like that. But I better not take them all or I will be found out and put my victim to a lot of inconvenience. I will take a week's worth. Mmmmm mmmm, free pants." It's possible. Much more likely than me just forgetting to pack them. But what kind of airport security person would steal just pants and not say - the DVDs and portable DVD player I had brought, or the new shirts I had bought (especially if, no offence, but they were the same size as me) or just the suitcase itself which probably cost more than most of the contents and definitely the pants?
Or did the pants all make it to the hotel and got put away in the drawer and then the person who cleans my room or restocks the mini-bar or puts the chocolates on my pillow happen to spot the pants and think "Hey, look at those fancy European pants. I'd like about eight pairs of those for myself. I don't want the computer or iPhone or the Kindle or anything else that has been brought into the room, but I reckon I could make off with those pants and no one would ever know."
They are nice pants.
This last option seems the most likely, as unlike with the airport security option there is a chance that the hotel employee has seen me walking around the hotel and thought to themself "Hey, he's pretty sexy. I would like to get my hands on loads of pairs of his pants and then maybe spread them out on my bed and wank over them."
Given the possible sexual motive then maybe it's my girlfriend who has stolen the pants. Even though she has constant access to all my pants at home. I've always thought it was a bit odd that she would want to go out with me, because she is way too good for me. But maybe that's been the masterplan all along. Maybe she thought, "That looks like a guy with a ready supply of large and extra large black Calvin Klein boxer shorts. Maybe if I befriend him, gain his trust and then go out with him for two years I can reach a point where I will have access to those pants and then squirrel away eight pairs of them either to sell on the black market or to masturbate over (delete as applicable)". I don't want to say my girlfriend is a pant thief/pant whore, but I don't think there's anyone reading this who doesn't think that that is the most likely explanation. And she has the added advantage that she reads my blog, so if she suspects that she has been rumbled she can just take the stolen pants home in her suitcase and then when we're home, before I get a chance to look, head down to the dryer and put the pants in a pile beside it, to make it look to all the world like I have gone crazy and just left my pants at home all along. Which is so unlikely as to be laughable.
You might think I am being paranoid, but tonight, after another lovely meal by the sea, we headed back to the room and I decided to have just one final beer out of the mini bar. I opened it up and settled down on the bed to watch a DVD and took a slug from the bottle to find I was drinking something with no fizz and only the faintest whiff of beer, that was almost certainly water. I was more than faintly disgusted, because the obvious conclusion to leap to is that someone who had stayed in this room previously had had a beer from the mini bar, but decided he or she didn't want to pay for it, so had simply filled the bottle with water from the tap in the bathroom and put the metal cap back on the bottle and put it back in the fridge.
How long would it have been there in that case? A few days? A few weeks? Is the water from the bathroom taps OK to drink anyway? And would the bottle have the festering germs of the beer thief around its rim?
This seemed just as confounding as the pant mystery. This is quite a swanky hotel, which costs a fair amount to stay in. Would someone be contrary to pay all that money and then baulk at spending about two pounds on a bottle of beer? (Please ignore the fact that most days while we've been here we have stolen two bananas from the breakfast buffet to have for our lunch).
Again it's possible, I suppose that a member of staff drank the beer and came up with the brilliant water replacement ruse, but surely a member of staff could just as easily throw the empty bottle away and no one would be any the wiser. Maybe the last people in the room had a teenage child who was worried about getting caught drinking beer.
But whatever, it was an unpleasant end to the day, leaving me wondering if I might fall ill during the night and seems an unpleasant and selfish way to behave.
I think most likely my girlfriend did it. If she's the kind of person who likes stealing pants for sexual gratification then she almost certainly would enjoy the kind of prank which would end up with me getting a mouthful of dubious liquid when all I wanted was a beer. She is good though, because she even took a sip herself to confirm that something was wrong. Putting herself almost certainly beyond suspicion of the crime. She's clever. Perhaps a little bit too clever.
