Adventures in denim

A week before Christmas I was walking down the hall towards my bedroom when I tripped on the hem of my jeans and fell flat on my face.

The fall knocked the wind out of me and I struggled to cry out as pain radiated up and down the right side of my body, the side that had taken the brunt of the fall.  I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk and I worried I had injured my one relatively healthy knee.

Nathan rushed over to help me up, and as I slowly got my bearings I couldn’t help but laugh since the reason I’d tripped over my hem in the first place was because my jeans had become a little too big and and were constantly slipping down my hips.

A couple of weeks later I was at Meg’s house wearing a different pair of jeans, a pair that weren’t as comfortable as the loose-fitting jeans that nearly killed me.  They were a little bit tight, not as tight as they’d been when I bought them, but there was some definite constriction around the belly area that was uncomfortable when I sat down.  But still, they were looser than they were before, so I reveled in the victory by putting them on and sitting my butt down on the couch.  Thankfully I was wearing a long sweater that covered my belly as the denim ripped and spilled my granny panty-clad stomach out through the gaping hole.

I cursed under my breath as I got up from the couch and changed into the only other jeans I owned that fit, the Jeans of Peril that had caused my fall.  On our drive back home from Oklahoma, I tossed the ripped jeans into a waste bin in a Walmart parking lot, vowing never again to buy a pair of denim anything from Catherine’s. Every single pair of jeans or denim capris I’ve purchased from them have split in the exact same place.  Note to Catherine’s-if you’re going to make clothes for fat ladies, make sure they hold up. I’m just saying.

I should have bought new jeans after that, but I’m very cheap when it comes to clothes and figured I could wear the Jeans of Peril a little while longer.  I tried clipping folds of denim together with paper clamps.  When that didn’t work, I started wearing knit pants underneath. The knit pants didn’t keep the jeans from going south, but they did keep me from feeling a draft.

When the jeans started to actually fall off and puddle around my ankles as I ascended the stairs at home, I figured it was time to visit Lane Bryant.  I hadn’t been there for several years, not since before my pregnancy. Their clothes had gotten a little too trashy for my liking and at my heaviest I was too large for the largest size they sell in their store. I had often fantasized about not being able to shop at Lane Bryant anymore, but I never imagined it would be because I was too big.

Sadly my trip to Lane Bryant did not yield a new pair of jeans.  Lane Bryant has complicated the jeans-buying process by changing their sizing system and color coding their stock based on body type.  I learned I was a Red but that I am still several pounds away from being an 8 or 9 or whatever size the clerk handed over before ushering me into the dressing room.  And of course they didn’t have the size the clerk suspected would fit me.

This past Friday I finally decided to retire the Jeans of Peril. I wore them to work with knit pants underneath, but at the end of the day as I walked out of the building towards the parking lot, I could feel the jeans slowly slip down my hips with each step. I prayed they would stay up long enough for me to get to my car and promised myself I’d forgo Jean Friday until I had a suitable replacement pair that wouldn’t require constant hiking and tugging.

I stuck out my stomach as far as it could go and tried not to make any sudden movements that would push the jeans past the point of no return. As I passed a car stopped at the crosswalk, I dropped a bag on the pavement and quickly bent over to retrive it.  Please, God, I thought, please just let me make it to my car.

I suppose this story would be pretty awesome if it ended with me dropping trou in front of a Nissan, but luck was on my side. I made it to my car without incident, gave my waistband a vicious tug and swore that would be the last time I wore the Jeans of Peril to work. Or perhaps ever.

Epilogue: Sunday night Nathan and I were in the bedroom and I held the Jeans of Peril up in front of me.  ”I’m afraid it’s the end for these,” I said and folded them up.  I stuffed them into my closet and pulled out three pair of jeans that hadn’t seen daylight in several years. I tried on one pair and was surprised to be able to get them up over my hips.  I could just barely get them buttoned but couldn’t get them zipped.

“Thirty more pounds,” I said to Nathan.

“Thirty? More like ten,” he replied.

Ah, such a dreamer, that guy. “Nope. Thirty,” I said and folded the jeans back up.  The next pair were impossibly small and I didn’t even try to get a leg in.  The last pair, however, showed promise. They were very worn, so much so that I could see light peeking through the fabric in some places.  A seam had started to unravel on one side, but as I slipped the denim up over my hips, fastened the button and zipped them up, I felt a thrill one can only feel when shopping in her own closet.

“They’re perfect,” I said, remembering why I had stopped wearing them. They had become uncomfortable because I was getting bigger and I was afraid I would eventually burst out of them like a sausage kept too long on the stove.

“Well,” I said, “I hope these hold up for the next 30 pounds.”

“Ten,” said my husband

“Twenty-five. Maybe,” I said.

Tagged as: clothing, weight loss