| Frankly, I’ve been developing an unhealthy fascination with my pants. I’ve narrowed it down to being subjected to a stream of less-than-subtle (but well-meaning) criticism about my wardrobe habits by my fiancée, and my own problem of not being able to change the channel when TLC’s What Not to Wear is on. With the combination of the two, I now spend a great deal of time sitting on my ass, dwelling on how the appearance of said ass might be influenced by what’s covering it. I might be getting ahead of myself a little at this point, though, because the personal discovery of my ass is, in itself, a recent development.
While I have all the standard features of a human posterior, it lacks depth--that is to say that while viewed head-on through the rear window of a moving vehicle,* it would appear to look exactly the way that one’s bottom should, but from a side angle… it’s apparently more of two-dimensional object. As a result, the most flattering thing that had ever been said about my buttocks until recent times was having them compared to the shape of a pizza box. I tried to look on the bright side of this, rationalizing that there were a lot of colorful pizza poxes out there.
Then came the day when my darling Alyssa passed beyond the “stern talking to” phase about my lack of style, declared that she was tired of seeing me wearing jeans that looked terrible, and forcibly dragged me out to go shopping at our local high-scale shopping center, where the Starbucks per-capita ratio is at a mind-numbing rate of one ‘bucks to every twenty parking spaces.
Four hours of fitting room toil ensued: Kohl’s, Macy’s, Express Men, Old Navy, Banana Republic--a visit to Nordstom was at least avoided, deemed in advance to be “probably ungodly expensive.” Then came… Gap.
 Alyssa strode into the Gap with steely-eyed purpose, tired and frustrated at a lack of success and further worn down by my incessant whining. She pointed to the wall of denim. “Go. And if I see you anywhere near boot cut, I’m going to hurt you.” I rolled my eyes and grabbed a couple of likely candidates to haul off to the fitting rooms.
Time passed. In the fitting room, I pulled on what might have been the thirtieth pair of jeans that day. Hmmmm… “Hey hon… what about these?” I asked, opening the door.
A look of scrutiny. She pursed her lips.
“Turn around.”
I sighed, and pivoted in my socks.
“Oh my God, you actually have an ass in those!”
“Huh? I do?!?”
“Yes! See I TOLD you that you just needed a pair that fit!”
“Honey, these are fifty dollars…”
“You’re buying them.”
“But they’re fifty dollars!”
“JEANS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO COME FROM TARGET AND COST ONLY FIFTEEN DOLLARS.”
“Yeah, but…”
“YOU ACTUALLY HAVE AN ASS! LOOK AT IT.”
I looked in the mirror again. I considered what I saw.
There was no denying it--there, situated at the top of my legs, was an ass. There was a curvature--slight, but existent nonetheless--that I’d never seen there before. Gap jeans had actually given my butt something to measure on the Z-axis. I begrudgingly had to admit that might be worth fifty dollars.
Now--several more pairs of new pants later--my ass and I have come to become fast friends. Armed with this new confidence, I have made further investments in changing my ensemble, stuffing bags with old clothes to give to charity and filling the holes in my wardrobe with things that fit, things without pleats… I’ve even been considering buying some shirts with French cuffs, although I’m honestly still a little leery of surrendering to that. I’ve just discovered I am capable of having style, after all--no need to take it and use it to stun the world with my ability to look good.
For now I think I’ll just take it easy, and spend some quality time sitting here with my ass.
*I am happy to admit that I have never, ever actually done this.
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