Where are your pants?

Weston wears shorts all year, and has never experienced weather cold enough to merit pants in his mind. This was painful to watch on our recent trip to London. Some days were much too cold for shorts — at least for any of the other 8.5 million people in London — but Weston didn’t care.

We walked by a stand that sold FC Barcelona hats. I told Weston I would buy him a hat if he agreed to wear pants the next day. We then went into our regular back-and-forth about why, at times, he should wear pants. The man selling us the hat had a bemused look on his face, and I realized that “pants” in England means “underwear.” I was trying to bribe my son to wear underwear, which is only slightly less bizarre than trying to bribe him to wear “trousers.”