Shorts, Serendipity and Sartorial Anxiety

All through the long hot summer I've been searching for the single pair of shorts that I own but without success.
This week my PC was showing Registry errors.
In the strange world of synchronicity and serendipity that we inhabit, these two facts are not unrelated.

I went searching through piles of junk in the bedroom for a DVD that contained a free Registry Cleaner program. I didn't find it. But I picked up what appeared to be a screwed up black bin bag and it turned out to be my little black shorts.
Actually, they are made of a material not dissimilar to that of a bin bag.
I didn't buy them at M & S or even Millets. I went to a seedy part of town and to a shop that was a cheaper version of Millets. It sold a range of camping and leisure accessories - and possibly camp leisure accessories - at prices ending in .99 but never exceeding a fiver.
I think I did this in case I never wore them or wore them once in the village street and frightened the horses.

In practice, I strongly deprecate the current trend to display acres of cellulite at the first glimpse of sunshine but I felt that it might be beneficial to expose my hairy thighs to nature's vitamin D in the privacy of my own garden.
Anyway, they are now washed and fabric conditioned (Spring Fresh, since you ask) and hanging on the line.

But a cloud no bigger than a man's hand is casting a shadow over my joy at finding my shorts. Looking at them pegged on the line they look somewhat exiguous in nature.
Well, downright skimpy if I'm to be blunt. Rather like footballers' shorts circa 1970.
I wouldn't want any embarrassing mishaps if someone dropped in unexpectedly for Earl Grey on the terrace. And I dropped out, as it were.
You may recall the episode of I'm Alan Partridge where he was wearing shorts in the Travel Lodge whilst talking to his PA and she suddenly exclaimed "Alan, you've popped out!" He explained that the lining had perished and that it was not a cry for help. When the necessary adjustments had been made he assured her that 'the soldiers were back in the barracks.'
So I must inspect the mesh lining carefully for signs of synthetic fibre fatigue before I wear them.

If I seem unduly worried about the soldiers going AWOL from the barracks, it's because I recently showed a lady round my garden and only afterwards discovered my flies were undone. I thought she had seemed a bit abstracted when I was talking about the Lupins.
On the other hand, she was the kind of lady who would have said "There's egg on your face" or "You're flying low" or some similarly absurd euphemism that I wouldn't have understood.

The problem of living alone is that there's nobody to tell you your flies are undone and nobody to ask, vis a vis the shorts, "Does my bum look big in these?"
And if you think I'm going to upload a picture to ask your opinions on the matter, think again, dear readers.
In your dreams.
No, that should probably be 'in your nightmares.'