Occupational Wardrobe Malfunction: In True Janet Jackson Style

Underarm pads from Daiso

I came across these underarm pads in Daiso the other day (trust the Japanese minds to come up with the most eccentric yet practical technology) and could not resist purchasing a packet for myself.

Now, don’t tell me you have never experienced sweaty armpits. Even if you were blessed with smooth tofu-like underarms with nary a pore nor  a strand of hair, you must have had a friend or at least seen a stranger struggling to hide sweaty armpit stains on smart-looking (and esp. plain-coloured) shirts/blouses. Sadly, the more one tries to hide, the more the stain gets magnified.

Talk about sweat stains ...

A close and attractive friend of mine has 4 flights of stairs to climb each day before getting to her classroom. She is slim and rather fit but since she is always in a hurry, she is not spared from this wicked underarm crisis. A few years ago, she found a solution to her problem: she tried stuffing tissues and leaving them under her armpits to absorb the sweat and it worked miraculously.

I have a few plain-coloured blouses myself. Sometimes when the weather is too hot and my sweat glands run on an overtime mode, I am left with that undesirable patch. One day, I decided to adopt my friend’s brilliant idea. If it had worked for her, why shouldn’t it work for me, too? I rolled up some toilet paper and shoved them under both arms. As I stood in front of the classroom, I could literally feel the tissues working their wonders and I was as confident as the Rexona girl because I knew that the patch was no longer visible to the naked eye. Alas, imagine my horror when I walked into the washroom after class only to discover that the toilet paper under one arm was missing! I tried looking around for that rather generous chunk of tissue but to no avail. The tissue was gone for good, and till this day, part of me wants to believe that it had just disintegrated into thin air and not fallen out of my sleeves, onto the floor, in full view of my entire class, all without my realization.

This little anecdote has never failed to make my listeners laugh. Their standard response is, “These kinda things only happen to you!” I do not beg to differ but perhaps it is also because I am thick-skinned enough to bring such embarrassing stories out in the open. (Warning: And if you’re unfortunate to be my relative or friend, your story might appear here, too.) 

In conjunction with the 10^th anniversary of Janet Jackson’s infamous wardrobe malfunction, do allow me to expose more stories of highly unintentional indecent exposures. Sure, they may not be as sensational as Janet’s but I assure you that they are, nonetheless, equally amusing and real.

Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction in 2004

I confess; I do not have a mirror in my room. I have never fallen in love with my own reflection, so the only mirror that I look at albeit for a split second before leaving the house is an A4 sized glass hanging above the kitchen sink. I would never notice if I had worn my clothes inside out, buttoned wrongly, have a stain, or worn shorts when I meant to wear long pants instead. I recall my former colleagues laughing at me for arriving at the office one day with my blouse all buttoned wrongly. I had walked hundreds of metres from the car park and met many students along the way with my blouse in that unprofessional manner, yet no one had said anything.

But then again, perhaps I do have a reputation for dressing sloppily to work. A case in point: I strongly believe in giving students a break in the middle of a class. It certainly helps students to freshen up and to stay awake for the rest of the lesson. But I guess not many students know the humble origins of such breaks. It was during one of my first semesters in college when I was caught with my fly down, literally. Today, I would probably have enough confidence to ask nonchalantly, “Class, why didn’t you tell me that I have forgotten to zip up?” and turn it into a big joke (while sprinkling some of the Amnesia Dust that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson used in Tooth Fairy, on my unsuspecting students).

Back then, though, I was still young and easily embarrassed. I quickly announced a class break, much to the relief of my students, and pulled my zipper up at lightning speed, not realizing that the reflection on the whiteboard was visible to all. Ever since that incident, I was always extra cautious and highly suspicious whenever I notice students giggling and whispering to each other. My automatic response would be to speedily run my fingers across the zipper or to take a quick glance down at my blouse.

While wardrobe malfunctions are common everywhere, people from some professions tend to suffer greater consequences than others. Such occurrences probably do not matter as much to one who is constantly confined within a small office space with a few close colleagues. Certain professions, like being a superstar for instance, would require you to meet many people at any one time. Being a lecturer or a teacher is pretty much like being a superstar, minus its fame and fortune. All it takes is a small blunder and the entire class will be left roaring with laughter and a hot subject for gossip whenever students are dissatisfied with the grades they have earned.

I wished someone had warned me of the importance of one's physical appearance when I had my first teaching stint in a private school. I was having a semester break after my first year in university and was merely filling in for a teacher who went on a maternity leave. I thought it was enough to just replace my daily jeans and t-shirts with auntie-looking blouses and slacks. What no one mentioned, though, was how to maintain the cleanliness of my apparels until the end of the day, despite being given coloured markers to write on whiteboards.

For most females, the most protruding part of their body (in front, at least) would usually be their upper assets. The main subject which was assigned to me then was Prinsip Akaun which required A LOT of writing on the whiteboard. Failing to maintain the right distance from the board always left me with marker stains on my blouses (I do not think I need to specify where). I was aware of such stains but I thought those stains would escape the eyes of high school teens. That is, until one day, of course, when I heard someone sitting in the front row whispering a bit too loudly, “Did you notice that she always has stains on her ****?”

A stapler a.k.a. a life-saver

Nonetheless, all the instances above are considered minor in comparison to my most ‘triumphant’ moment in all history of occupational wardrobe malfunctions, and to think that I owe it to a stapler. I have a friend whom I nickname ‘razor butt’. She has the talent to rip pants apart, not vertically i.e. along the seams but horizontally. She has done this not once, but twice, and on denim pants, no less. I used to laugh at her but one fine day, retribution came knocking on my office door…

It was merely 5 minutes before class when I suddenly realized that the seams at the back of my pants had slowly given way. The pair of slacks was almost a decade old and I guess I was also packing on the pounds. Neither my colleagues nor I had a sewing kit with us. I would have settled for a safety pin but the 15cm tear was just too long and I was not about to risk sitting on those pins. My mind raced as I pondered how to prevent the class from getting a full view of my rear.

I could always wrap a sweater or a scarf around my hips but even someone with as little fashion sense as I do knew that the colour and print on the scarf was just too distracting and was sure to arouse suspicion. Also, what if the scarf suddenly falls off? Armed with nothing else but a stapler in hand, I decided to hide in the toilet and staple the tear. I made sure that there was not a single space between each staple. I then pretended to walk confidently into class. The staples were so neat and tight that I decided to leave them there for many more washings after that. It was my fear of not being able to clear through the metal detectors at the airport which finally forced me to undo the staples and to mend the seams using the conventional method i.e. with needle and thread.

By now, you may be laughing or gawking in disbelief at these stories. These incidents may seem improbable to anyone else but if you knew me well enough, you would know that they are all true. I have shared these accounts to many people and one of my friends even employed the stapler method when her pants ripped at work. You may want to keep your eyes open. Who knows? A wardrobe malfunction may just be around your corner and I sure hope that it is not you who is caught with your pants down.