This Week In Clothes. A Tale in Two Parts (more or less)

Ah, Pants

I had the dubious task this weekend of shopping for new pants. Thanks in large part to my current position, I now go through them twice as fast as ever thanks to the random assortment of uncleanable chemicals I deal with in combination with the nearly endless sitting on my ass I'm forced to endure. I went through fewer pairs in the 6-1/2 years I was at Packard than I have in the 2 I've been in my current position.

At the rate I go through them, I find it's best to just go with the inexpensive JC Penny's brand, St. John's Bay. I used the word inexpensive instead of cheap because they do hold up rather well under normal conditions. Anyway, it's kind of rare to find pants in my size just sitting there on the shelf, but I can't just order them through the catalog because, while they do use quality fabric and such, their assembly leaves a great deal to be desired. I currently own 3 different sizes of said pants in three different waist sizes that fit exactly the same - that's the size of a friggin' hotdog for crying out loud!

Anyways, I ventured outside my comfort zone on this shopping trip because Penny's was having their "It's the 3rd Saturday of the month One-Day Only two-day Sale Preview" sale, so I tried to remedy my dwindling pant supply issue in one fail swoop and try on some other makers' wears.

I think Docker's new logo should be "Dockers: For the man with no ass!" and American Living could go with "American Living: For the men with giant asses and toothpick legs and oh yeah, by the way, don't be fooled by our name because none of this crap is actually made in America." However, I must give them credit where credit is due because whatever country they made them in knows how to measure! The waist sizes were painstakingly measured to have a standard deviation less than that of the aforementioned meat-like stadium snack.

After trying on these other brands I wandered back towards the old standbys but found a table of the most technological advance in pant-related technology the world has seen in years. It's the Holy Grail of pants! It's Haggar's Self Delusional Slacks!

I'm relative certain that's not what they called them, but they're phenomenal! They're like maternity pants for men, but way more subtle. They have an elastic quality to the waistband like that of the slicker-than-shit Flex-Fit Hats. It's got some stretch to it, but it doesn't have those bunchy elastic sections that are so popular with toddler and old people crowd! I can continue to delude myself into thinking that I'm continuing to wear the same size pants that I have for years even though these things will expand to like 10 sizes bigger! And no one will know unless I point it out. Sweet...

If I could figure out how to apply this technology to women's dresses, you know so they could all continue to "wear the same size they did in high school" (wink, wink) - I'd be a freakin' bazillionaire!


My Increasingly Irregular Shirt and The Magic of Wal-Mart

I have a novelty T-shirt that came into my possession from Wal-Mart. It's especially witty by any standards, but especially Wal-Mart. It features two gnomes who appear to be from the lower socio-economic region of wherever it is that gnomes come from and they're wearing sunglasses while folding their arms. They would be the equivalent of gnome wannabes if there were such things as black gnomes (I defy you to find one!). The quote emblazoned across the front says "Hangin' With My Gnomies". Clever, no?

Anyway, upon placing this fine piece of Nicaraguan craftsmanship upon my person, I noticed that the entire printed portion of the shirt was askew. Given the nature of this shirt (as I described in detail above), this may have been done on purpose to enhance it's urban vibe. Yes, I know it's probably just another f*#ked up piece of Wal-Mart crap, but please just leave me to my happy delusions.

Anyway, the more I wear this shirt, the more irregular it becomes. The first couple times, it was an odd shift where the already askew logo was seemingly drifting towards the right side of the shirt. The last time it was worn, the neck had grown to an opening at least twice the size of my already enormous melon of a head. How does it get that big if it's not stretched over something larger?! Today, however, was easily the strangest occurrence to date. Not only was the neck now three times the size of my head, the logo drifted so far to the right that only the gnomes heads could be seen peering out from under my armpit, but the shirt is now somehow three inches longer on the left side than the right!

I verified this by centering my neck in the enormous neck hole as best I could given the now mammoth size discrepancy and made sure that the sleeves ended in the same approximate location on each arm. Sure as shit, the thing was three inches longer!

I know I should probably just throw it away because it's pretty much useless, cursed, or both but I'll be damned if I'm going to give up on it early. I want to test my hypothesis that eventually those little pointy-hat wearing little gnome wiggers will wind up on the back, which will actually be my ass because the neck hole will eventually fit around my waist!

Friggin' Wal-Mart...