Where Can I Get Some 3000 Year Old Pants?

 

MY BACK IS UP AGAINST THE WALL. It is the Christmas Season and everyone will be in a cheerful mood and dressed for the occasion. You know – family and all that. I am being given subtle signals that I will need to dress more like a mature man. A man who isn’t still dressing like he did in 1969.

And I hate going out shopping for clothing. Going into a store and having to deal with some clerk who asks me the one question I really hate to answer: “What is your size?”

That question doesn’t have a hard and fast answer. Faced with that question I usually end up replying with,

“That depends on the time of day, the weather, the manufacturer, and to  what I am willing to acknowledge to myself and to the world.”

The problem is that I dress like a laundry hamper. Some days I even shock myself.

My wife, the lovely and very tasteful, Dawn, is most tolerant, but even she has her limits with me. She tries to improve my wardrobe and her efforts are much appreciated. She tries but I have a body that doesn’t cooperate. You could put me in a $50,000 Kiton suit and I would make it look like it used to hold potatoes. Let’s be honest. You could have Michelangelo paint your dog house, but no matter how nice of a job he would do – it would still be a dog house.

Woof!

I am now faced with the inevitable, a time when I have to either buy some new duds or start hosting a nonstop Toga Party. I think my best solution is to go to stores that are notorious for neglecting their customers.

Here in Terre Haute (That’s French for “Do you have that in a larger size?”) I have only two options – Wally World or the new Meijer’s store. Meijer’s (Pronounced “Meyer’s”)

is a lot like Wally World only newer and with a better bakery. That’s it.

When I am accepting of the fact that I have no pants that look any better than those 3000 year old trousers recently found by archaeologists in China I brace myself and do the deed.

At Wal-Mart I can wander through their “Men’s” section all day without being approached by anyone who actually works there. If I see an employee and we make eye contact they turn and run off to hide in Housewares.

If I am looking for some new jeans I know that it is going to be a long day. Every other shopper, just like me, picks up a pair, walks around with them, changes their mind, and puts the pants down wherever. As a result I have to look at every pair to find my size or one close to it.

Finding something that fits is not easy when you have a body that is a cross between Tweedldum and Sasquatch. When I find the right waist size I then have to look for the correct length. My legs come under the heading “Stubby,” but they don’t label them that way. It is a long slow process.

After all these years of playing hide and seek with my pants I have begun toying with an idea or two.

1. Giving in to all of the frustration and wasted time I’ve spent shopping. I am tempted to throw all caution to the winds and try shopping online for my clothes. I just received a catalog in the snail mail from an outfit that seems to have everything I might need. I think I’ll dip my toes in that commercial ocean. Anyway, it’s better than my other option.
2. Scrap the whole idea and become a nudist at the age of 71.

There are several caveats that come with this. We are in Indiana and it snows here. Another warning flag is that if I show up at St. Arbucks “al fresco” it could cause a riot. People could get hurt as they rush for the doors. Then there is…well, my wife would kill me, or have me committed – or both and I could hardly blame her.

Now, where did I put that mail order catalog?

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