The Great Pants Disaster 2001™

When two lanky people with a collective inseam of over 144 inches decide against everyone else’s better judgment to cohabitate, they must allocate a large percentage of their daily schedule to battling the inevitable pants plague: pants on the floor, pants on the nightstand, pants strewn about the kitchen table, pants discarded and forgotten peeking sheepishly from underneath the bed.

Like many other vertically triumphant specimens I find it nearly impossible to find a decent pair of pants, a pair that hits me at my ankles and not at my kneecaps. And when I do find a pair that fits, I stock up like a Mormon housewife recently trained in emergency preparedness. My wardrobe hosts over 22 pair of khakis and 37 pair of jeans, collected since I reached 5 foot 10 inches in the 9th grade.

The Roommate, a veritable gangly-ass descendant of a Redwood tree, shares the same problem. He recently purchased 14 pair of stretch wool fitted pants, not only because they were on sale, but because damn Gina, they fit! Said purchase brought his portion of the household pants population to 62.

Needless to say, we’re being overrun by pants.

For our recent trip to Seattle, both he and I packed nearly half of our respective pants collection for reasons known only to those who have had to borrow a short person’s version of the pant. Having to wear this version is to the tall person akin to public humiliation of the guillotine variety.

Upon return, however, we neglected to unpack, a fatal lapse in our ever-constant guard against a pants revolt. For the last three days an army of khakis and woolen cargos have conquered the bedroom under the leadership of a pair of indigo rinsed Levi’s 505 Jeans, and the bathroom is facing and imminent Gap Stretch Boot Cut occupation. Low-rise stretch flare rebels are everywhere.

It’s time to smoke ’em out, get ’em runnin, and bring ’em to justice.