Mall Trek II: The Search for Pants

I have no pants. "Pantsless," I could be called, in a context like "look out, look out for the pantsless avenger!" If someone were to ask me "where are your pants?" my response would have to be that I have none to speak of, not since last month's disaster in which mine own dear pants were damaged.

And ongoing Pants Rescue Project or not, the fact remains that I need a new pair. I've been surviving on skirts and a strange pair of dress slacks that my mother bought me five years ago, (and that I've worn maybe twice until the past two weeks, during which they have been my constant companion).

These same two weeks have been spent in an unremitting quest. A quest for pants, you could say. And my quest has lead me to believe that, much like the American Dream, pants may not be attainable.

It's ludicrous.

I don't ask for much; I really don't. I would like pants that are not jeans or tan khaki, and which ideally have pockets. Beyond that, the horizon is open.

No.

As reasonable as this would seem, there are not pants to fit me. I have what is called an hourglass figure -- big hips, big breasts, little waist. A good figure, I would say. But either pants will not go over my hips, or they are far too big at the waist and fall off if I sit down.

Grrrrrrrrr.

I have gone to every store I can think of. Salvation Army, Urban Outfitters, TJ Maxx, Target, Ross, Wet Seal, Almost 21, Dillards, JC Penny's, and countless others. I have tried on every pair of pants in each of these stores.

Nothing.

The wonderment begins to be how I ever found pants to fit me in the past. I begin to understand why Mae West and Bettie Page dressed the way they did -- there simply were no pants for them.

Val has volunteered to become my personal trainer for a few weeks and actively work to change the shape of my body, in the hope that if I can't find pants to fit I may be able to change to fit pants.

Dee has suggested that for now I buy tights to keep my legs warm, find a good pair of shoes, and stick with the skirts.

I am going to go to a costumer's, in the hopes that perhaps there will be pants from another era that will fit me.

Sigh.

Freewheeling

hipgunslinger has told me that I sound somber when I'm ailing. He's right, of course. Since my throat hurts, I talk more softly; to compensate, my pitch drops even lower than usual. So that people still take me seriously, you understand. But it gives me the air of a high religious figure. Amusing to watch the reactions of clerks.

When I was driving at dusk, there were blackbirds everywhere. They covered the ground until it looked like roiling ink; they encompassed the winter trees with feathered foliage. Power lines looked thick as my arm, sheathed as they were by bird bodies; clouds of birds that couldn't land for lack of room wheeled back and forth across the intersection.

I keep forgetting to mention that Patrick has gotten a livejournal. thanecawdor. He's using fake names to amuse himself, and because his last journal was hacked by an ex-girlfriend who was trying to kill him. (Patrick somehow manages to attract homicidal maniacs in the same way I accumulate manic-depressive slackers.) So in the profile at least, he'll be using an alternate name. Ten bucks says he discloses the real one within the week.

::checks Patrick's journal:: Yep.

He tried to call me Rinue for a bit, but this made me anxious. Rinue is just code (on a QWERTY keyboard, move your right hand one key to the left, and then type Romie), but it's not a character I've ever identified with. It's a pun, it's a joke, it's not my name. It doesn't resonate. I took him to task, because this is what I do. He is, after all, My Erstwhile Squire Who Is Always Drunk When The Attack Happens And Why Do I Keep Him Around Anyway Because Surely He Is More Of A Danger Than An Asset To My Attempts To Protect The Princess I Serve.

"Sum you up in a word other than Romie?" he said. "Impossible. She Who Cannot Be Named? No; sends the wrong message." He pondered. We went to Waffle House. There was more pondering.

"I think I'll get more hash browns," I said.

"Nimue, then," he replied as though it was a sensible response. "The Lady of the Lake. Defeater of Merlin, adviser to King Arthur, and survivor of the whole debacle."

Smarmy bastard. He'd better come over soon and commiserate with me over my lack of pants, not that he'd understand since he has perfectly serviceable brown corduroys.