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Adan: “I have an older brother with whom I shared a room with while growing up. We’re a year and a half apart in age, and we’re roughly the same size in physique. My brother moved away for college during his sophomore year, but our room was still “our” room—two beds, two dressers, etc. One day, he was getting ready to head back to school. I walked into our bedroom and saw a pair of black dress pants hanging off the foot of my bed. I looked over at my brother, as he was casually doing whatever he was doing, picked up the pants and tossed them on his bed. He looks over at me and asks me what I’m doing, to which I respond that those pants aren’t mine. He says that they aren’t his either. The tossing goes back and forth a few times, with mounting frustration on both our parts. I ended up giving up and walking away.

My brother eventually returned to school and, a few days later, I was pulling a pair of pants out of my dresser when I spotted the dress pants conveniently folded and placed under another few pairs of my pants. How dastardly! I took those pants and jammed them into his dresser. If memory serves me, I believe I brought those pants up in a phone conversation, and my brother busted out laughing.

Over the next decade or so, those pants would find their way into each of our possessions when we least expected it. Whenever he came home or when I went to visit him, the pants would come along. Both of us tried to find clever ways to sneak those pants into the other’s luggage or stash them somewhere in the house. We would wait until after the last-minute check before leaving for the airport to quickly stuff them in the luggage. We would employ the help of other family members to distract each other, wewould use the pants as “packing peanuts” when we sent each other birthday or Christmas gifts, and sometimes the pants WERE the gift.

It all ended when, eventually, I needed a pair of black slacks. I didn’t have a pair that I wore for special occasions, but I remembered I had the pants! Would they fit after all these years? I wasn’t exactly the same size as when these shenanigans started. I pulled them out and looked them over. For all the pants had been through, they were still in good condition! I tried them on and, lo and behold, they fit great! So, obviously, there’s no way those were mine to begin with!”