Metro Journal: Pragmatic Pants

I was walking some errands this afternoon, and while I was waiting for a crossing light, I heard some shouting. A woman, whose car was stopped at the light, was leaning out of her window, yelling at some dumbass teenager across the intersection to pull up his pants. I looked over. He was wearing those pants which are about ¾ length. In theory, they should hit mid-calf. They were down at his ankles. The waistband wasn't at his waist or even hanging on his hips. It was hovering around the tops of his thighs. The pants were in such dire danger of falling around his ankles that he had to hold them up with a hand. "But," you say, "wouldn't a simple belt have solved the problem?" Oh, he had a belt running through the belt loops. It just apparently was too large. "But," you say, "could he not have simply cut some more notches into the belt?"

Like I said, he was a dumbass.

The thing reminded me of this guy who would often get off the bus at the same stop I did in the evenings when I was working. He looked like he had missed the punk revolution by about 30 years. He had a black mohawk, with the sides of his head completely shaved, and wore a black leather jacket, black jeans, and black knee-high combat boots. Now, I walk pretty fast, but he would always be ahead of me for the couple of blocks we shared in the same direction. What made that amazing, though, was that he would have to stop and pull up his pants periodically. And it's not like he was lacking a belt, either. In fact, he would generally be wearing two or three, black, of course, with silver studs. It's just that none of them actually went through his belt loops and they were just kind of slung over his hips.

I can understand wanting to have a loose waistband for comfort reasons, really. But the annoyance factor of having to pull up your pants regularly, if not hold them up continuously, just boggles my mind. I face a less severe incarnation. Apparently most clothing manufacturers assume that women who are my general shape and size have the proportions of, well, boys. Hence, pants that fit over my hips gap at my waist. Some fit better than others, but I simply cannot find decent casual pants where there is not at least something of a gap. Seriously, if a pair of pants fit properly, I would have no need of a belt. However, sometimes the gap is so large that a belt can only bring the waist in so much without pleating, so the pants will scoot down an inch or two. Even that annoys me. I can't imagine dealing with, oh, a foot or two.

I realize that people have done foolish things over the centuries in the name of sartorial style, but really, this thing seriously makes me want to pull up some of these dumbasses' plummeting pants to the point of wedgie-dom. Maybe the crack of their ass will hold the things in place for awhile.