New Jeans

Let me just start by saying that all this rain really f-ing sucks. I have never seen so much constant pouring before in my life. And yesterday, I got to see it first hand. We had a couple guys call in sick yesterday, so once again I was out on the road and travelled down into DC to do a couple pools.

My buddy Kupe and I were working together and we finished up our first job without too much of a problem. We then get to our next job, which is a pool closing, and unload the 200 lbs. worth of stuff and get it set up pool side for the close-down. Well, about five minutes into my vacuuming of the pool, the rain begins. Within 3 minutes I'm pretty wet, 5 minutes I'm soaked, and within 10 minutes I might as well have been vacuuming from inside the pool. We run back to the truck and try to wait out the heavy rains, but when twenty minutes pass and the guy's front yard is covered in standing water, I think we need to call it a day.

We run like mad through the standing water to grab our pump and such from pool side, clean up the place and get out of there. My shoes and socks now have their own standing water in them. We make brief stops at our remaining jobs just to throw in some Chlorine shock so they'll be OK til Monday, then I drop Kupe off at his place in DC.

It's only about noon at this point, so I grab some lunch with my bro (after heading home to change clothes) and then decide it's time to get myself some new jeans.

You see, I don't tend to buy nice clothes for myself on a regular basis. I'm pretty content to wear Old Navy stuff that costs me about $10 each, and since my job requires I wear crappy clothing, I never have much of a need for anything better. Most of the time, I just wait til my birthday to pick up some of the nicer stuff that I wear out to dinner and to the bars. But today, I was gonna break the mold.

The last few weeks, I've been noticing that my old nice jeans are not fitting quite right, perhaps in part to my new McDonald's diet, or perhaps because they're all about 3-5 years old. The worst part about the old jeans is that they seem to be way too tight in the crotch, something that is definitely a concern when heading out. Constantly adjusting yourself probably doesn't sing too well with the ladies. Or you run into a problem that happened to me about 2 years ago.

At the time, I was living in DC with my buddy Greg. He had invited over his sister and a friend of their family, who ended up being pretty hot and had amazing boobs. Well, we head out to Lucky Bar that night and I'm wearing a pair of jeans that are hugging the boys just a bit too well. So, I'm getting drunk and when she wants to start dancing, I'm like 'What the hell' (I mean, I've done the running man in this place before, I think I can handle dancing with this chick)

So we're dancing, and then she starts grinding up on me. This is normally not an issue, but these damned jeans have my dick pinned down my left leg...and she's rubbing right on that. There's no time to make the adjustment and get the soldier out of there (as I mentioned above), so he decides to stand up and fight.

So, as I was saying, it's time to get some new jeans, so I head over to Lord & Taylor at White Flint Mall. This is a nice place and I actually got some shirts here a couple months back (I don't get Summer stuff for my birthday since it's in December) that were nice.

They've reorganized the place, but I eventually find the jeans. They've got a bunch of different brands and usually I would just grab two or three and get the hell out of there, but it's like 1:30 at this point and I have no idea what size I wear anymore, so I figure I'll try some on. Holy shit, I did not realize what a disaster this would be, and how different jeans are cut by each brand.

First off, I used to wear 34-32, but I guess that was just because jeans were made "Loose Fit" and "Baggy" the last time I bought some. Apparently, the McDonald's diet not only makes me fatter, but makes me shorter, as I ended up with 36-30 this go round. And this took about 5 different trips back and forth to the dressing room to figure out.

I now find the appropriate size and start looking at different styles of jeans. Most of the jeans look really gay now. One pair was pre-faded in the thighs and butt, and it just looked weird. Then, a couple other pairs had holes in them or about-to-be-holes. I've got a whole closet full of these from chlorine stains, and I really don't think that is a smart call as the holes just get bigger with each wash. Perhaps the pool man is the trend setter without me even knowing it. If Timberland boots with shorts comes into style in a couple years, you'll know who to thank.

Anyway, I finally get everything squared away and find some less flashy jeans. I'm ready to pay, when I realize I didn't look at the price tags. $110 for a pair of Kenneth Cole jeans!!!!! What the fuck!!!! No, fucking way. Those went right back on the hanger. Shit, for that price they better give me wood right when I put them on. I ended up with two pairs of DKNY jeans and a pair of Lucky jeans (these were a sentimental purchase, as I used to have a pair when I was 17 and they got destroyed doing pool work a couple years ago).

For these three jeans, I paid almost $225 and spent almost an hour in the store. And this is why I will not buy another pair of jeans for 3-5 more years.