It’s Not about the Size of Your Pants but How you Play the Game

It’s our anniversary and so we start the day with breakfast and mimosas to toast 25 years together.

Grant: Did you notice our waitress has bitchy resting face?

Me: Her lipstick is really bright so I was mostly just looking at that. Are you getting a bad vibe? I’m just worried she’s not gonna ever bring us another mimosa. One doesn’t seem like enough to celebrate such a long time. It feels like a miracle. Though my parents were married 26 years before they divorced so we should be careful about celebrating too loudly.

Grant: You have to take off their separation time. So really, we have already beat your mom and dad.

Me: Yes! We’re winning. I would toast to that but I’m empty.

Grant: Crap. I forgot to take a stomach pill.

Me: Let’s for sure buy some stomach pills. Otherwise we won’t be able to have snacks, lunch, more snacks and then dinner. With drinks in between all of that. Good stomach health is important today.

The waitress brings us our check. She does indeed have bitchy resting face. But I overhear her talking about her three little boys to another customer. So we tip her well even though she was slow to bring us our second mimosa. Little boys can cause bitchy resting face.

We stop at Walgreens for stomach pills. I get completely paralyzed in the mascara section. My GOD: do I need long, thick, plump, or voluminous lashes? Very black, kind of black, ebony, brown-black, or brown lashes?  I buy mascara MAYBE once a year and always find myself so torn. I find Grant in the aisle where they sell things like orthopedic socks and bedside toilets and we make a few discoveries. For $18.99 you can buy a fork, spoon and knife with a red handle that apparently helps increase eating for people with dementia. We giggle at something to help relieve strain in the scrotal area. It helps with fatigue “down there”. It’s important to stay in tune with the latest medical aids. Especially Grant who is in his 50’s now. I myself am only 49, so it will be a few years before I need scrotal aid.

In addition to stomach pills and mascara, I find a wooden G & H to decorate. Maybe for our 26th anniversary celebration. Go big or go home on this day I say.

Grant: Where to next wife?

Me: I could use some work pants. I don’t have a single pair of pants that I can button and I am tired of wearing moo-moos and cute boots. Cute boots are a lame attempt to try and mask the fact that I am wearing a moo-moo. Plus one of my boots has a hole in the heel and little rocks keep getting in there.  It’s rattly when I walk. Embarrassing.

Grant: So we should look for new cute boots?

Me: No. I can duct tape the hole. I need pants. Winta’s comin. It just seems so NON anniversaryish, buying pants.

We go to the mall with the intent of finding pants to fit my bigger than last year’s butt and a new Seahawks hat for Grant. While he stops at a sports store with hats in it I wander into the most expensive store in the mall just to touch a few things and try and get an idea of what today’s fashion is. A twelve year old sales girl swoops in on me and pretends to be my new best friend. “Whaty up to today?” I just don’t feel like explaining to her what I’m up to, mostly because I’m just not sure what I’m up to, so I put down the $200 pair of black pants I am looking at and mumble something about needing a snack before I find the perfect pants. The music was just too loud anyway.

I turn into the store next door for women who have “real butts and such” thinking maybe this will be my mecca land. But if feels fraudulent in there because all the pants are cleverly folded backwards to look like size two pants when they are really size twenty or more, like the pants should be ashamed for being a bigger size. I can not support hypocrisy.  Plus I’m mostly NOT a size twenty and I don’t want a repeat of six months ago when I went to the thrift store and bought a bunch of size twenty clothing, explaining to Grant that I was “planning ahead”. Hence the moo-moos. That I thought I could make cute with boots.

I walk out and see Grant sitting on a bench. No hat. So far shopping is a bust.

We walk further down the mall.

Me: Maybe I should buy a new bra. My favorite one is falling apart.

Grant: There’s Victoria’s Secret! We could go in there!

He is suddenly interested in shopping.

Me: No. I hate those people and always will. Ever since I wanted to buy a cute bra when I was gigantico prego with Daniel and asked if they had a 42 triple D and that awful brat sales girl just turned her nose up at me and said “we don’t carry sizes that big”. I wanted to DIE. And when I turned to leave the store, my big belly and boobs knocked over a stupid skinny mannequin.

Grant: She was just jealous of your giant boobs. But NO. Let’s not go there. They are bad, bad people at Victoria’s Secret.

He is saying these words but his body is steering us both toward the store. We laugh and I tug him in a different direction.

Me: Now THIS looks promising! I like some of these outfits!

Grant patiently sits back down on a bench and I walk into the nice, dignified quiet store and start looking through what I think are wonderful styles. FINALLY! I have about ten items in my arms to try on when I look up and around me and realize that the only people in the store are women in their 70s and 80s. I’m not kidding. There is NO ONE under the age of 70 in the store. Granted they were all very lovely and well dressed women but the moo-moos have been bad enough on my ego. Not only am I not a size 20 I am not even CLOSE to being eighty and so should MAYBE not dress this way. I put the clothes back on the rack, quietly exit the store and sit down on the bench next to Grant with a dramatic sigh.

Me: I don’t fit ANYWHERE. I don’t know who I AM anymore. I belong NOWHERE. God I hate shopping.

Grant: Then why in God’s name are we here? We should be drinking our second breakfast.

Me: Yes! Let’s get the hell out of here.

We walk through Kohl’s on our way to the car and I am practically knocked over in shock by the most perfect, cutest little dress I have ever seen and it is only $29.00! I grab a size large and hold it up for Grant.

Me: Look!!!! Finally a dress as cute as my nightgowns. OMG I’m so buying this! Can I buy this?

Grant: Sure. But that IS a nightgown. Though I bet it would look great with your cute rattly boots!

I look around and realize we are in the pajama department

Me: Well who the fuck would put the pajama section right at the entrance of store. Everyone knows it’s supposed to be in the BACK of the store!  I’m so pissed! I was in love with this dress until I found out it was a nighty. The world is a cruel place.

Grant: Yes it is. I have yet to find the perfect Seahawks hat so I feel your pain. Let’s go drown our sorrows.

Though I DO actually find some new pants before we leave the mall. I buy two different sizes of the same style: one sort of snug and one sort of loose. Because I just don’t know which direction I am gonna go right now in terms of butt size. And GOD only knows when I will go shopping again.

But then we go to Jack and Dan’s for a beer. We hunker up to the bar and I see this brick with the initials G H S engraved in it.

Me: OMG! It’s our initials! It’s a sign that we ARE winning! And that we are FINALLY in the right place!

And we clink our drinks to further proof that we are winning. Even though we both know the initials stand for Gonzaga High School, the private high school four of our six kids have attended so far.

We are both just happy to still be playing the game.