A Tight Fit

On the mortification of flesh by denim.
  February 1, 2003

Today, dear Diary, I will bitch to you about jeans.

It’s not easy being six foot four and thin as a stringbean.  Some people scoff at me and say that they wish they had my problems, but they know nothing about foreheads regularly meeting with door frames, so I shall ignore them like the insignificant mites they are.  Among the many drawbacks of being really tall and skinny, dear Diary, is the impossibility of finding a pair of jeans that fits.

Pants are easy.  In the worst case, they can be bought with an unfinished hem and then tailored to be the right length; I know this because I have to.  Jeans, however, through the workings of some unseen but doubless vast international conspiracy are uniformly designed for midgets whose knees never make indentations in the backs of anterior bus seats, or for behemoths who are of stout height but far too ample girth.  This injustice is aggravated, oh Diary, by the fact that my ass looks great in jeans, I just know it, and all the ladies would know it too had I but the chance to display it.

My complaints today have an immediate cause, dear Di.  You see, I bought a pair of jeans yesterday, an expensive pair, and I wore them to work today to give them a trial run.  They fit me like a dream when I first tried them on, Di; they fit like a song sung on a sunny day in a summer valley, and I was happy.  Before wearing them, I gave them a wash as one should, because you never know what disease-ridden thighs had filled them in secluded fitting rooms in the past.  I suppose choosing jeans is like choosing lovers: after numerous one-time encounters followed by rejections, you finally commit, and that’s when the problems start.

They shrank!  I washed them, dear Diary old chap, and they shrank like fiery flesh surprised by cold water.  As I sat barely moving in the office chair, staring at the screen of my computer while hours zoomed idly by, I became aware of unpleasant sensations pervading my entire lower body but centering with brutal precision on my crotch.

I tried my best to shake off the evil grip.  I employed isometric exercises, fidgeting, tugging and stretching of the fabric, and frequent visits to the bathroom for the brief relief I got when I peeled the denim off to sit on a toilet.  Despite these tricks, pain accumulated with time, and towards the end of the day I found myself sitting on the bus and wondering just how strangely the people will look at me if I take off my pants in public.

The jeans are lying beside me as we speak, dear Diary.  In their own inanimate vintage-washed way, I’m sure they are making fun of me.  We stare at each other in silence but the still air rings with barely suppressed strife: cloth opposing flesh, the wear against the wearer, my jeans versus my family jewels.  And the gods of victory are fickle.

I think tomorrow I’ll put these jeans away and instead don an old pair of sagging corduroys which, while boasting no oversized rivets, bold stitching or sleek looks, never give me painful wedgies every time I take a step.  Until my next folly is committed in the name of fashion, I will slink down the streets in a display of sartorial ineptitude, but my balls will be happy.

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