Stupid Thing of the Week

I have a couple of options for Stupid Thing this week (but hey, I nearly always do).

The one I've chosen is my shopping trip with my mother. We went to the mall together today, because she had planned on getting me a new pair of pants for Christmas, and it never happened.

But today was a Saturday and we tried to get it done, along with dropping something off at the mall where my aunt works. We went to three different stores, and I think I tried on eighty pairs of pants. In one of the changing rooms, instead of returning the unwanted clothing, people had just piled them in the corner. The pile was (seriously) half a meter high, towering to the point that when I added my blue jeans to it, it tipped over and lives were lost.

Do people use the term "blue jeans" anymore? I can't remember the last time I heard someone say it outside of an old movie or song lyric.

I have absolutely no fashion sense, and had it been me, there would have been three factors in picking a pair of pants, which would have taken approximately four minutes. They would have been, in order of importance: a) really, really cheap price; b) more or less my size (I often wear pants that don't fit right because, hey, I already paid for them, 'be darned if I'll let them go to waste); and c) a colour I don't hate.

My mother had different criteria, including brand name and style, fadedness and godawfulness, as well as preferring colours that better suited either gangland or flower children. Pair after pair that she handed me (in fact, the entire selection from one store) were purposely made to look used, with a faded, pre-worn look. People tend to think that is cool, to wear pants that look like they were stripped off a O.D.ing homeless vet.

But I appreciate that my mom wanted to help me with this, since my buddy Merrill's mother is dead, my buddy Matthew's mother is hopelessly insane (apparently Doctor Jonathan Crane is trying to help her at his . . . clinic), and my brother's mother likes me better.

So, I tried on pair after pair, attempting to get something that makes me look less like Bea Arthur and more like Rue McClannahan. And nothing was pleasing her (though a couple pairs were comfortable--and on sale--which was enough for me). She kept saying they were too baggy, or too unflattering, or too much like the pairs I usually wear. Apparently, my pants aren't nearly Tom Jonesy enough.

And here's the rub: she wanted me to start wearing pants that not only have a slimming effect, but are unnaturally tight around the groin and buttocks.

It happens every day, no matter what they say, boys and girls, hearing my mother use the word "sexy" may go down as one of the more disturbing moments of my life.

Rish "It's Not Unusual" Outfield

P.S. We ended up not buying any pants at all (but she now knows the brand and style she likes), so it looks like this experience will be repeated in the near future. Oh joy.