My Pants

If you’ve ever seen me, you’ve probably seen me in these pants. I’ve been everywhere in them: bars and restaurants, Europe and North America, the beach and jail. I think they’re called cargo pants (at least, that’s what the arresting officer wrote down). They are fairly long for shorts, but fit loosely and work well with boxers. They are covered with pockets, and most of the pockets button shut. They have a drawstring that has allowed the pants to expand even as I have.

Triska bought them for me years ago at a thrift store in Pacific Beach. Two bucks, or something like that. (She’ll remember the exact price she paid for them, even after all these years. She never forgets a bargain.) Sometimes I would be annoyed when she would buy me clothes I didn’t need (my definition of need and hers were very different), but these I took to right away. You can do anything in these pants, from fishing to dancing.

The fact that I have done so much in these pants is also a testament to their durability. Scrambling over rocks, mucking through mud, hauling a halyard on the open sea, or just kicking back on the sofa, these pants have come through with glory. By now a lesser pair would have holes in the pockets where my keys have been driven through the fabric. Other pants would have worn through the seat. Lesser trousers would have lost buttons, but not these. These are the Iron Man of pants, endurance gear harkening back to an era when men were real men, women were real women, and pants were real pants.

Alas, durable and eternal are as different as the Earth and the Universe, and soon it will be time to put these pants out to pasture. The drawstring is frayed; if I’m not careful about how I tie and untie the knot I could find myself having to cut my way out. I’ve already had some pretty close calls in the men’s room. The fabric is getting thin in places and the cuffs are starting to look ragged. While we (my pants and I) were in Catalina things really started to let go. They are still merely scruffy rather than indecent, but it’s only a matter of time now. Hopefully Old Navy still makes this model, and makes them as well as they used to. I like them so much, I’d even buy them new.

17 thoughts on “My Pants

  1. Ahhh, Favorite Clothes.

    I, too, like to wear out my favorite clothes. In fact, once I designate something as favorite, it pretty much has the kiss of death written all over it. Jeni has had to apply mercy killings (throw directly away, do not think about donating) to articles of clothing that have been my favorites for (in her opinion) too damn long.

    There was the blue coat with a paper clip that replaced the zipper handle that broke, there was a sweatshirt Jeni loaned me before we were married (OK, “loaned” means she let me wear it once, I didn’t give it back, I wore it pretty much not stop through several weeks across half a dozen European countries [Bill can vouch for that], and when I got back to the states [and to Jeni], she didn’t *want* it back. Go figure.) I could go on and on.

    Instead, I’ll just paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy: If you are using epoxy to mend clothing, that might just be a favorite.

  2. Alas, Pat had to leave a pair of his favorites behind on that sailing trip. Even though the boat was nice and big, the aft cabin was not; one morning, he was trying to get out of the bunk without disturbing me (he didn’t know I was already awake), and rrrriiip! Those pants were so old, they were probably about to go anyway, but still, that’s an argument in favor of, when we get our own boat, getting one with a center cockpit so the aft cabin will be roomier.

  3. Re: Jail?

    So give us the short, interesting version. Employ historical fiction if you must. You can’t just leave it hanging like that.

  4. Hmmmm, scruffy beard, cargo pants, upside down in an airplane. I’d say it was a smuggling plane, with a cargo bay full of marijuana. An air national guardsman on your tail, a full load of British Columbian Moose Forage, and a devil may care swagger. Probably blasting Bob Marley out the radio, while sucking on a big ol’ spliff. So you bail out, the plane crashes and burns most of the evidence, and you probably would’ve gotten away scott free but you had to go back and see if you could salvage your autographed copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves. That was when you met up with Smokey. All I can say is, I hope nobody googles for that international best seller, because they’ll sure end up on the wrong page.

  5. Oh, and congratulations, Jesse, on posting the One Thousandth Comment! When I’m in a position to, I will put up an epiode to commemorate the event, but that may be a couple of days.

  6. That jail thingie wasn’t that incident where you ran afoul of the phone company’s rent-a-cop during the union dispute?

  7. The jail thingie wasn’t the time you had pocket full of war diamonds and a misunderstanding with the San Diego Zoo staff around the gorilla inclosure?

  8. God Bless Pants! They run David Letterman here and at the end of the show the announcer will say something about pants. I think I need to have that on my site.

  9. Jerry, did you ever run the commerative epiode? I don’t recall. What’s our total comments now, nearly a year after the 1000th comment? You have counters on episodes and counters on visitors, but no counter on comments that I can find.

  10. Counting the comments is a bit trickier (Requires math) but I’ll get on it.

    Edited to add: We’re in the neighborhood of 3,660 comments. Whoo!

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