During my middle school years, fitting in was a daily battle. My case was not helped by the fact that my closest friend, Stacy, was incredibly shy and that I came from a family of very modest means – which meant I seldom wore the latest and greatest in clothing trends.

One huge trend at the time was wearing “parachute pants,” which were made popular by the rapper MC Hammer when he hit the MTV air waves with “Can’t Touch This.”

My parents finally had splurged on a brand new pair of purple parachute pants with a geometric design for me, and I couldn’t wait to show them off at school. The day I wore them was playing out as usual until I went to use the restroom before Mr. Goe’s social studies class.

Mr. Goe’s class immediately followed lunch, so there were a lot of full bladders by the time the late bell rang. To prevent the constant interruption of his class by students asking to use the restroom, Mr. Goe started a daily speed race between the girls and boys before he started teaching. Standing in the doorway with his stopwatch at the ready, Mr. Goe sent all of us to the restrooms at the same time, and gave the watch a final click only once every student’s feet were under their assigned desk. The only prize was bragging rights – and perhaps the opportunity to break our record time – but that was enough to get us seated and settled for the entirety of his class.

After lunch on this particular day when I wore my MC Hammer pants, Stacy and I raced down the hall with the rest of the girls from Mr. Goe’s class to do our part to “beat the boys” in our daily race. Stacy was already at the sinks when I started to yank down my pants inside a stall. That’s when I heard the fated snap.

“Uh… Stacy?” I whispered. “Can you wait for me?”

“OK….”

I waited for the bustle and chatter of our female classmates to dissipate completely before exiting the stall. We definitely lost the girls vs. boys race that day.

“My elastic broke,” I said as I revealed the new waist of my pants. I looked like someone showing off their 300-pound weight loss on an infomercial for diet pills.

Stacy doubled over in laughter.

“What do I do?” I begged as I gathered as much material as possible, holding up the pants at my waist with one fist.

After several seconds, Stacy composed herself and suggested going to Ms. Meyers’ home economics room for assistance. We took home economics on the other wing of the L-shaped building, opposite of Mr. Goe’s classroom.

“OK, just let Mr. Goe know that I had an emergency and went to Ms. Meyers for help.”

Stacy was still suppressing laughter as she left.

I gathered my pants once more, along with my resolve, and departed down the hall for the Home Economics room. The room was empty of any other student or teacher, but thankfully unlocked. After looking through cooking utensils (Could I fashion something out of this potato peeler and plastic wrap?) and several sewing kits, I finally stumbled upon a bin of safety pins of varying sizes. I found one large enough to poke through the many layers of fabric with room still to secure it at the end. I admired my handiwork in a nearby mirror. My top was just long enough to cover the pin and the gathered fabric.

I smiled to myself as I thought, No one will have to know!

As I walked the length of the hall back towards Mr. Goe’s room, however, I was tipped off to the fact that the secret was out. Through the windows that lined the hallways and classrooms on both sides of the “L,” I caught sight of some students in Mr. Goe’s classroom scurrying from the windows back to their seats, followed by audible whispers of “Here she comes!”

The room erupted with laughter at my entrance. Even Mr. Goe couldn’t help but to chuckle. I quickly learned that my quiet, reserved, painfully shy friend, Stacy, had spilled the beans to the entire class.

It took the remainder of the day for the jokes and laughter to finally die down. I had made it to the last class of the day, Ms. Tucci’s math class, where we were rewarded with “math money” for solving certain math problems or correctly answering questions. At the end of each week, you could redeem your math money for a prize, such as a colorful eraser or a bouncy ball for playing a game we liked, called Jacks.

We were going about our business of solving math problems and earning math money, when Ms. Tucci said, “OK, we’re going to change things up a little bit.

Is anyone wearing polka dots today?”

Someone was, and that person was rewarded with math money.

“Who has blue socks on?”

A couple of students received math money for their sock selection that day.

“Does anyone have a safety pin?”

An eruption of laughter. “Patty does! Patty does!”

My cheeks burned.

Ms. Tucci didn’t get the joke. “Patty, do you have a safety pin?”

More laughter.

“Yes, but you’ll have to take my word for it,” I mumbled. “It’s holding up my pants.”

The hard-earned math money I received that day is long gone, but I have carried a safety pin in my purse ever since!