Some of Us Have It: Some of Us Don't

Reaching a height of just under five-feet and two-inches tall, I am what my father would call “vertically challenged”. This really isn’t a problem except when I need new pants (or I try to dance with my much-taller husband of six-foot-three). I hate shopping for pants. I can go to store after store after store and not find anything that fits. Or I do find something that fits, take one look at the price tag, and start to see little spots of light that require me to locate a chair ASAP so that I don’t fall over and hit my head on a nearby display table. I refuse to pay more for jeans than I do for my electric bill.

Then there is my husband. I don’t know if it is simply because he is a man, or if he asked God to give him a special gene that enables him to find pants on clearance wherever he goes. It really is infuriating. We generally only have to go to one store for him to be able to locate his size on a clearance rack where everything is an extra such-and-such percent off already reduced prices; even if the table has one lonely pair of jeans on it, chances are they’ll be just right.

I suppose I really shouldn’t complain for two reasons: one, it doesn’t require a ten-hour shopping marathon to get what we came for; and two, it sure is nice to pay ten bucks for a pair of sixty-dollar Dockers. This last week he purchased one pair of jeans and two pairs of Dockers for a grand total of $26.39. The point still stands, however, that by the time I find blue jeans for myself I am practically delirious from lack of hydration and my mental facilities are on the fritz from mission-failure-itis. As of right now, all of my pants need a belt to stay up, and some of them have holes in them and torn pockets. Nevertheless, I am going to keep wearing them until they are only strips of fabric hanging from my waist and it comes down to buying new pants or being arrested for indecent exposure. Nothing but the threat of jail could coax me into the torture that is pants shopping.