Catwoman Meets Mom Jeans

Coming down off the pain of not shopping Thursday night (see previous post) I dressed for work Friday with a renewed sense of boldness and optimism.

I shall go forth and wear the clothes I have. I have more than enough! I do not long for any more wardrobe variety!

So the Confident Shannon pulled out an item of clothing never before donned in public: Aunt Maggie's leather pants, given to me years ago and deemed too small at the time, thereby relegated to the back of the closet.

Perfect! It was another freezing day outside. Leather is appropriate in winter, right? And...ooof...squeeze...yes! My butt fit! They weren't too small!

I was catwoman, daring, a young professional in awesome leather--oh. Mom jeans.

The waistline was...um...high. I looked down at the mile-long zipper. And the button at the top really didn't quite button, being a bit too tight right there under my boobs.

I looked in the mirror. Was this supposed to be some sort of pantsuit? How did anyone get away with making such hot leather pants with such an upsettingly high waist?

Okay, well, at this point, I was determined to wear them. So borrowing a little trick my stepmom used during her pregnancies, I used a hair band to close the button and hole at the top. This way I could sag the waist a little. Sure, there was a little bump where the button was not buttoned, but I just layered on a few shirts and a cardigan, effectively hiding my secret Mom Jeans conversion technique.

Effectively hiding anything awesome about wearing leather pants, too. From the hips down I was catwoman. Everything else was, well, this video:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/10333/saturday-night-live-mom-jeans

But the catwoman half of me was unrelentless. Clearly I just needed a good tailor! I popped in to Minh's Alterations at lunch, only to have Negative Nancy there tell me there was nothing to be done.

Excuse me? Had I accidentally wandered into a San Diego hospital's neurology wing? Surely there were thousands of pairs of leather pants made every day, all out of leather and thread. I was simply asking him to make me some leather pants, and I was supplying the leather and thread...only this leather happened to already look like pants.

Frustrated with Minh's lack of vision, I left. Perhaps I wasn't commanding enough authority with my look of Frumpy Superheroine.

I thought about giving up, but then the pants really came through for me that afternoon. All around town, pipes were freezing and busting off the tops of vacuum breakers, creating geysers at the sides of folks' homes. The first valve I shut was at Aunt Sarah's house, where I was instantly baptized in the icy water that had been shooting out for the past hour. We noticed several more mini Old Faithfuls up and down the streets of her neighborhood, and felt called to help those people out, too.

Leaping into the waterfalls to shut the valves, my layers of conservative tops were soaked through...but my pants remained waterproof! Sloshing through little lakes in backyards and stopping the wasteful gush of water with one flick of the wrist, my legs stayed wonderfully dry. I spoke to neighbors, explained what we had done, and finally felt like the Superheroine I had pictured when I first pulled those pants out of the closet.

So I gave them another try; yesterday I took them to Swan's, and he didn't even bat an eyelash when I explained that I wanted him to drop and expand the waistline.

Oh, sweet renewed sense of accomplishment! I shall return Thursday to a pair of real leather pants, properly fitting and totally catwoman-esque! Perhaps I'll make it through this crazy resolution after all!