Beating the system

I am a fond wearer of shorts. There are people (whose opinion I usually respect) who would feel this puts me in the category of Schlub. They are welcome to their opinons. All I can say is I have big legs that do not ever feel all that comfortable in jeans, and I am just not ready to adopt voluminous harem pants. Yet.

My shorts always wear out in the same spot - where the creases form across the top of the thigh. I should say that these are always "cargo" style shorts. I am just comfortable in that length of short - the over-pockettage I just ignore.

Due to my complete lack of hips I need my shorts to have a drawstring. And it's been getting harder and harder to find them. They are all elastic-waist or have belt loops - as if I am going to wear a belt with shorts. What do they think I am - an axe murderer?

So I have been wearing my old scraggy torn-through-the-creases shorts while walking the streets of this town (which is actually oversupplied with pants shops) searching for a new pair. Is there anything sadder than a scraggy-shorts-wearing middle-aged man, on a Tuesday morning, wandering through Glasser and Parker running his hand around the waistline of pair after pair after pair of shorts? No.

So I gave in, and bought a pair with an elasticise... no I can't even type it. And for the last month I have hitched them up every 25 minutes - that’s about 1700 times.

Last night I finally beat the system. I took the drawstring out of an old pair (I keep the torn ones for 6 - 8 years as you do) and surgically inserted it into the waist of the new ones. And I do not say "surgically" without cause. I started the night before at about 10.30pm - tired, poor light, cranky. I had a paperclip and a scalpel blade, one of those curved ones - to use as a quik-unpik and to slice through obstructing layers of short. I was holding it in my hand because my scalpel was .. uh .. so tired. You know?

I could have used better tools if I had been bothered to go find them, but I wasn’t. This session ended with the paperclip hopelessly lost in Quadrant 5 of the waistband, and blood on the floor. And on the shorts. The new shorts.

Last night I decided to return to the fray. I had Michael’s head-torch, a proper craft knife, pliers to get the paperclip into an efficient shape, and steely determination. It took a little while but it was SO much easier and I didn’t even once consider calling an ambulance.

I am now proudly wearing my improved shorts, and I will be able to get out of the car without hitching up my pants like a Maurie Fields.