sproing . . .

I'm a barefoot, jeans and T-shirt kinda girl. That was my uniform of choice as a child, lent itself well through my hippie years and what the heck, things were going so well, I was all of a sudden in my 50's and still happily clad in them. Denim and cotton, the fabrics of my life . . .

Middle age spread came, thankfully, late in my little corner of the world, but when it did, it came with a single minded veracity . . . I was exponentially exploding. I whizzed out of my size 4's and 6's, into 8's, stopped in 10's long enough to say hello and kept on going. Jeans were no longer comfortable around my spreading waist and other burgeoning body parts. I mean lets face it ladies, unless you are aged somewhere between 12 and 20, there are lumps and scrumps to be dealt with. Yeah, I'm including you . . . well, some of you . . . OK, just me. Sigh.

As long as my old wardrobe was being purged, I figured I might just as well acquire a little more style and headed on a shopping expedition. After unburdening my woes, the saleswoman expounded on the virtues of stretch fabric. I returned home with three pairs of really cute crop pants, one of which was, of course, denim because I am after all, an old dog and we all know about those beasts and new tricks. When I tried them on in the store, they were perfect . . . no obvious pantie lines, no more tight in the butt but big in the waist or vice versa. I was a happy camper.

So I rise in the morning, slip into my new duds and start my day happy and comfy and finally looking a little more put together than usual in my matching top and scarf. A few hours later and I was still reveling in my new found comfort zone . . . loving no longer feeling like a sausage jammed in casing, hanging from the ceiling of the deli section. But by lunch time, I realized that after repeatedly hiking up my pants, things were getting decidedly looser. And by dinner the crotch of my pants were inching toward my knees. I added a belt. As I undressed for bed, the darn things slipped right over my hips and onto the floor without stopping to be unzipped or unbuttoned. The next time I wore them, the same thing happened and I was now considering the merits of suspenders. Is this really what is meant by stretch fabric? I happily returned the other two pairs for a smaller size.