Roy Collette and his brother-in-law have been exchanging the same pair
of pants as a Christmas present for 11 years - and each time the
package gets harder to open. This year the pants came wrapped in a
car mashed into a 3-foot cube. The trousers are in the glove
compartment of a 1974 Gremlin. Now Collette's plotting his revenge--if
he can get them out. It all started when Collette received a pair of
moleskin trousers from his brother-in-law, Larry Kunkel of
Bensenville, Ill. Kunkel's mother had given her son the britches when
he was a college student. He wore them a few times, but they froze
stiff in cold weather and he didn't like them. So he gave them to
Collette. Collette, who called the moleskins "miserable", wore them
three times, then wrapped them up and gave them back to Kunkel for
Christmas the next year.

The friendly exchange continued routinely until Collette twisted the
pants tightly, stuffed them into a 3-foot-long, 1-inch wide tube and
gave them back to Kunkel. The next Christmas, Kunkel compressed the
pants into a 7-inch square, wrapped them with wire and gave the "bale"
to Collette. Not to be outdone, the next year Collette put the pants
into a 2-foot-square crate filled with stones, nailed it shut, banded
it with steel and gave the trusty trousers back to Kunkel.

The brothers agreed to end the caper if the trousers were damaged.
But they were as careful as they were clever. Kunkel had the pants
mounted inside an insulated window that had a 20-year guarantee and
shipped them off to Collette. Collette broke the glass, recovered the
trousers, stuffed them into a 5-inch coffee can and soldered it shut.
The can was put in a 5-gallon container filled with concrete and
reinforcing rods and given to Kunkel the following Christmas. Two
years ago, Kunkel installed the pants in a 225-pound homemade steel
ashtray made from 8-inch steel casings and etched Collette's name on
the side. Collette had trouble retrieving the treasured trousers, but
succeeded without burning them with a cutting torch.

Last Christmas, Collette found a 600-pound safe and hauled it to
Viracon Inc. in Owatonna, where the shipping department decorated it
with red and green stripes, put the pants inside and welded the safe
shut. The safe was then shipped to Kunkel, who is the plant manager
for Viracon's outlet in Bensenville. Last week, the pants were trucked
to Owatonna, 55 miles south of Minneapolis, in a drab green, 3-foot
cube that once was a car with 95,000 miles on it. A note attached to
the 2,000-pound scrunched car advised Collette that the pants were
inside the glove compartment. "This will take some planning,"
Collette said. "I will definitely get them out. I'm confident." But
he's waiting until January to think about how to recover the
bothersome britches.

"Wait until next year," he warned. "I'm on the offensive again."