The relationship I’ve had with pants has been a long and sometimes ill-fitting one.
It’s not that I don’t like them – some of my favorite pieces of apparel have been pants! –but in a world where a size 10 is sometimes larger than a size 14, one develops trust issues.
And this is why I tried on over 10,000 pairs of pants on Sunday.
Ten thousand pairs.
The memory of those poorly lit rooms weighs heavily on me.
Part of the problem, I suspect, is that somewhere along the line the American Pants Manufacturers (in cooperation with the United Federation of Trousers) decided that while pants may be asked to successfully cover you from, say, hip to ankle, these haters of women, curves, and, yes, democracy, by golly, have decreed that they can assure coverage only when you are standing up.
Wait, what? You want to sit down? Sitting down is for chumps and you’ll do it but it will cost you the dropping of the pants’ waistline and the exposure of either a.) your underwear, or b.) your butt crack.
Both of which may lead to a guest appearance on The People of Wal-Mart.
In the fruit bowl of life, I am, physically, what one would refer to as a “pear”. I’m a little wider on the bottom than I am up top, am small around the middle, and mix well with nuts of various types.
So Sunday I braced myself for humiliation and set off in search of coverage.
When I go to try on pants, what I get a lot of, these days, is a waistband far too wide for me. I call these pants “grapefruit smugglers”, as there is plenty of room at the back for transporting your larger fruits, storing wallets, or protecting tea-cup variety dogs from larger dogs.
After several dozen pairs of pants – and listening to the women further down the dressing room aisle laugh themselves hysterical over the swimsuit/swimsuit cover-ups they needed for an upcoming cruise – I finally found what I was looking.
A single pair of pants that fit properly.
I searched in vain for another pair just like them and was denied.
Still, I have my one pair; and like my mom says, oh, no one’s looking at your pants. Change the shirts up, throw in a jacket or a scarf and no one’s the wiser.There’s nothing like starting the workweek with a new pair of pants: I feel fashionable, I feel sleek, and I feel productive.
This week’s going to be awesome.
