Revenge – Pants Style!


Candid camera.....The devil pants make it to mid-thigh before they get stuck like a spoon in day old oatmeal. I sigh and cast a glance at my old pants, which are in a heap on the bench. I long for the comfort of their worn elastic waistband and well-earned, homemade ass-pouch. I strip the devil pants off my thigh and throw them on the ground. Two other pairs of pants wait in the corner, zippers grinning in wide, mocking sneers.

“?!@#.”

If there is an activity that elicits my wrath more being in a dressing room, then it is being in a dressing room trying on pants. I am a card-carrying member of the Chubby People’s Club, having scored high marks in the areas of donut consumption and midnight snacks. Furthermore, my thesis, Butter, it’s not just for bread anymore,’ was very well-received in fat circles.

But pulling up stubborn pants in a dressing room filled with mirrors, light and judgment brings out the shamed sociopath in me. There might as well be an audience of gawkers pointing and laughing and women covering their children’s eyes from the horror.

Despite a butter habit and sedentary tendencies that would impress Jabba the Hutt, I am able to shift blame for this difficult situation. Today, I am blaming Europe and the pant-pixies. Trying to get my ass into European pants is like being forced to fit a basketball into a burrito wrap. I rationalize that it’s a delayed revenge for introducing McDonald’s and Burger King to the continent.

The pant-pixies are another group that I blame. I have wished for these pixies to come at night, measure me and leave tailored pants on my bureau.

No luck so far.

I somehow manage to get the next pair of pants up over my ass, which now looks so large that it seems to inhabit a new zip code. I inhale, hold my breath and begin the great struggle to button them before I lose consciousness. I don’t totally succeed, but when I come to the pants are buttoned, so I score this as a victory.

From outside the dressing room, my patient companion, K, has started tapping on the door. “How do they look?” she asks.

“Uh, they’re pretty tight.”

“Let’s see.”

I step out and K begins making a low humming sound that comes just before someone tells you that your wife has moved in with a man named Chico. The saleswoman behind K is less subtle and looks at me as though I am a steak in her fridge and have just stood up and done a jig.

“Can’t we just forget this and go for a beer?” The pants have cut off the circulation to my legs and I am gripping the door for support. “Or pizza?”

K smiles at the gooey irony and hands me another pair. “These are bigger.”

“Bigger? But these are size @$’s!” I close the door and look into the mirror. For the first time, I notice the front ‘zippered portion’ of the pants and realize the lack of imagination it would take to guess my religion.

“?!@#.”

  1. #1 by Andy on January 30, 2012 - 6:40 pm

    As a U.S. southerner, I can confirm that your thesis has been well-received down here too. Our intelligentsia (almost couldn’t type that with a straight face) is in a tizzy awaiting its follow-up: Bacon.

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