Yesterday on NPR, I heard an amazing story. I don't have the proper software to listen to the story on-line, but many of you probably do, so I am including this link to it.

The gist of the story is that certain people are taking extremism to a whole new level in Iraq. Turns out that some goat herders have been killed because they refused to diaper their goats. And why, pray tell, would you need to diaper goats that are not kept inside your house? Because, of course, a naked goat presents too much of a sexual provocation to young men. I am *not* making this up. And, the NPR reporter says, vegetable sellers in Iraq have been killed because some religious nutcases decided that certain arrangements of vegetables were too sexually provocative.

Reminds me of why increasing numbers of folks in Iraq are saying they were better off under Saddam. To be fair, those surveys should include questions about the future--"do you think you and the country will ultimately be better off without Saddam?" and I would think the vast majority would still say "Yes." (And I will omit here my normal series of questions about are WE better off; has it been worth it for us in terms of blood and treasure?)

The part about the diapers reminds me that I looked like I could have used one yesterday. I was in a colleague's office around mid-day and as I walked out, she said, "Jay, you have some horrible stains on the back of your pants that you better check out right away." This was after I had been walking around the office all morning.

I go to the restroom, and see this incredible brown stain all over the "crucial" areas of the seat and areas adjacent to the inseam of my trousers. It truly looked like I had done my business in my pants. (Well, upon close inspection, you could see the stain was on the outside only, but no one besides me was going to get that close.)

What happened was (or least the story I am sticking to) is that I ate a new kind of Trader Joe's granola bar on the way to work yesterday. It has chocolate chips on top that in theory, are securely fastened to the bar, but we keep the bars in the refrigerator, so you don't get that slight melting action you would get if you kept the bars in the pantry. So, not noticed by me, several of the chocolate chips slid off into my lap and worked their way down while I was driving. This was confirmed when I drove home and looked at my car seat.

Back to the bathroom at work, where I had a wet paper towel and was trying to clean off the chocolate by twisting around in front of the mirror with my pants on (bad move, should have gone in a stall). The president of our Private Equity group suddenly walks in, sees me wiping, and says, "Jesus, Jay, what the hell did you do? Crap yourself?" I try to explain, but he wants none of it. He says, "You better see my assistant who has some dry cleaning wipes. Water is not going to work on that crap." And he was right. Water was basically just smearing it further.

So then I had to go explain to his assistant about why I needed a dry cleaning wipe. It worked marginally better than the water, but some parts of the stains just weren't going away. And the story is not done yet. I stopped by the dry cleaner on the way home, and at the cleaners, I changed into my other pants and handed over the chocolate-covered trousers. The person at the counter looked skeptically at the brown stains...I'm sure they see a lot, but this was extraordinary and merited a raised eyebrow from the counter person. "I sat in chocolate," I said, definitively as I could. The counter person nodded and even said the same thing happened to her once, but she still seemed skeptical. I thought of asking her to smell the pants to prove my story, but then thought better of it, and just thanked her and walked away.

Lessons: (1) Don't eat chocolate in the car, except on an emergency basis, and even then, watch ALL the chocolate all the way into my mouth; and (2) Keep a clean pair of neutral-colored slacks on the hangar on my office door at all times!