"XYZ," of course (or didn't you know?), is the code term among men that means, "Examine your zipper." Most men, when warned by someone whispering this expression, will hastily close their open zipper fly.
How common is this situation? It is at least common enough to have generated some urban legends. Several people have written to me recently asking about such stories, so let me zip through the typical versions.At the simplest level, there's the story of the businessman or the college professor, seated at his desk, who notices his fly is unzipped.
He hastily closes the zipper, not realizing that the end of his necktie is now caught in it. When he stands to greet a visitor or begin his lecture, he is nearly strangled.
Slightly more complicated are the unzipped fly stories told about bus or subway passengers. In one such story, a man is warned that his zipper is open; he hastily closes it, catching a piece of the skirt worn by a woman standing next to him.
An embarrassing extrication follows, as it always does in these legends. The driver, conductor and other passengers all join in the struggle to free the two strangers from the zipper's firm grip.
Another fly-on-the-bus story tells of a woman who accidentally drops her handkerchief, which lands in the lap of a seated man. She points at his lap, calling his attention to the hanky, and he glances down and thinks his shirttail is hanging out.
The man eases the zipper down, stuffs the hanky inside and re-zips, leaving the woman speechless. (I wonder how he explains the hanky in his pants when he gets home!)
Next we move to the theater. This time an usher whispers the "XYZ" warning to a young man whom he is seating, along with his date, just as the house lights are dimming.
The man - walking sideways down the row - takes advantage of the darkness to hastily zip up. But he catches in his zipper fly either the long hair of a woman in the next row or a piece of material from his partner's dress.
The show is stopped, and the lights are brought up so the unfortunate pair, now tightly joined by the stuck zipper, can be separated or removed from the theater.
The most elaborate unzipped-fly legends describe mishaps that occur at dinner tables. In these stories, the man with the open zipper is usually hoping to impress his date, her parents or his new boss with his social graces.
Luckily, someone discreetly warns the man that his fly is open. But unluckily, and without realizing it, he snags the edge of the tablecloth in his zipper as he closes it.
When the man steps away from the table after dinner, he brings all the dishes, glasses and silverware crashing to the floor.
Sometimes this snagged fly business is the climax of a whole series of embarrassing accidents the man has suffered while dining out at a posh restaurant with his girlfriend or new boss.
The next morning he decides to call the manager and apologize for the turmoil he caused the night before.
Supposedly he is told, "Sir, feel welcome to return anytime; you're worth it for the entertainment value alone!"
Probably these stories and others in the same vein go back as far in time as do zippers in pants, which raises the question: How did men warn each other about undone flies before that?
I received the answer the last time I wrote a column about this topic. A gentleman wrote:
"I lived for many years without a zipper. When a button became undone, the warning was `One o'clock at Petersburg!' Your fly file cannot be complete without this."
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(C) 1990 United Feature Syndicate Inc.