Get in my pants

I have a hard time believing there is anybody out there who wouldn't enjoy spending some quality time in my pants. My wife's facial muscles are sprained from the amount of eyebrow raising she has done on the subject. Chagrin might begin to explain it, but it comes nowhere close to ending the subject. Simply put, I've got a great pair of pants and I'd be happy to invite anyone to get in them for a test drive.

Perhaps some background is in order.

A couple of years ago, I picked up a pair of jeans on a whim. I don't buy clothes very often, and when I do, it's usually a ten-minute aisle-sprint that ends in me buying a bunch of muted colors and things that are more comfortable than they are stylish. These particular jeans, however, were perfect. They hugged the parts that needed to be hugged without squeezing the parts that shouldn't be squeezed. They looked worn, but not worn out. Best of all, they were comfortable enough to make me wish I never owned another pair of jeans.

I went out a week later and bought another pair of jeans.

The exact same style, size, color, and everything. Even I couldn't tell the difference between the two pair. That's actually where I made the first mistake. I should've put one pair in the fire safe. Instead, I wore one pair until it was time to wash, and then put on the other pair. Rinse and repeat for two years.

I guess it has something to do with the amount of time I spend on my knees in front of my employer, wife, and the poker fates. Regardless, the knees of my jeans are always the first to go. No big surprise, the knees of both pair of jeans blew out within a week of each other.

"Honey," the wife said one day, "I think it's time."

The wife is immeasurably understanding when it comes to my indiscretions and eccentricities. She puts up with me looking like a slob most of the time. However, there reached a point with both pants that I looked...well, I'll say it: stupid. Somehow, though, I couldn't let go. When you have something that spends that much time protecting your junk from public view, it deserves a little respect. I mean, these jeans have covered my ass in several countries and I'm supposed to just throw them out because of a couple holes? Nuh-uh.

I went with iron-on patches. For a mere four bucks, I got about two dozen patches of several different colors. The idea was to turn the jeans inside out, hold the raggedy parts together and fuse them back together from the inside. The first time I did it for both pair, you could barely tell there was a patch involved.

The fourth and fifth times I did it, however, I knew I was fighting a losing battle. I was like the guy who doesn't realize when it's time to put his dying dog out of its misery. One day, one pair of jeans blew out again, this time in a huge rip down one of the legs. Faded denim hung like ripped flesh. There would be no putting those jeans back together. I considered burning them and keeping the ashes in a mug on the mantle. Instead, I tossed them in the trash and cried for a couple minutes.

That left just one pair of jeans raging against the dying of the light. My irrationality headed into overdrive. I went to the same store and couldn't find anything close to the same style and size. I went online and started searching--everywhere from the store's web site to eBay. Nothing. I might as well have been a junkie on a desert island with the last of my H dripping out of a hole in my arm. The laws of supply and demand only hold up when a supply exists.

So, I went to work. I identified every weak spot in the aging denim and patched it from the inside. Turned inside-out, my jeans looked like something out of a Ozark Mountains craft fair. Worn correctly, though, they look like...well, they look a pair of jeans that has been patched seven or eight times from the inside. Still, I can't stop myself from wearing them. My wife has stopped rolling her eyes and started averting them. Either that, or she covers them when we're in public together.

As I type, I hear the Friday arrival of the local garbage collector. It would take me all of two minutes to walk upstairs, grab the jeans, and run them out to the curb. But I can't. And I won't.

Not until the last shred of denim is hanging from my sentimental and quite happily covered ass.