Dear Journal: One Pair of Jeans

Dear Journal,

I have one pair of jeans for some reason or other. A while ago I had three, and two were blue jeans while one was black. Only the black survived. I dread the day it wears thin or springs a hole in an opportune place because it’s so hard for me to find pants in my size. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I bought pants in a brick and mortar store. Catalogs be damned, but I have to use them (and jcpenney.com too).

Before my growth spurt shopping for clothes was easy. I could go into any store and my mother would lay out the funds to get me what I needed, not necessarily what I wanted, but definitely what I needed. That was of course back in the late 1980s when bell-bottoms were maybe coming back around, when acid-wash meant super cool, and when high waters were a kind of style. I loved all of them, not to mention wearing the black pants with the white socks like Michael Jackson. And I had options.

But then 1992 came along, and with it my monumental growth, and my options grew small as my size grew large. Only a few stores carried my size anymore, and even then they didn’t have many in my size, which was suddenly on the very edge of their selections. Then I grew some more, and suddenly catalogs were my only hope. More material meant more money, though, I soon found out. Buying from the Large & Tall catalog was a hit or miss adventure, trying to find the deals when they came along, and hoping that my size was part of the deal. And that kind of guessing and hoping game still goes on today.

So I have my one pair of jeans, and they happen to be black, so there’s no variety when I’m not working and I want to be casual. It’s either a pair of khakis or it’s my one pair of jeans. And because I wear them so often in the in-between times I worry even more that they’ll have worn out by the next time I take them out of the dryer, so I keep my eyes open as I flip through the catalogs, and as I go to jcpenney.com’s Big & Tall clearance section, and I keep my fingers crossed as I look for a 38 length.

And I hope for blue, because jeans are supposed to be blue, aren’t they?

Sam