TheBanyanTree: Mr. Picky-pants

[Julie Anna Teague]

The boy is getting new jeans for Christmas because he is desperate for 
new jeans.  He does not concur, and I know the ripped, grungy look has 
a strong following, but every now and then I'd like to see the kid in a 
full set of pants with two knees, an intact pocket or two, and a hem.  
He has this one pair that is nearly obscenely tight, very low 
(displaying five inches of his Hanes boxer briefs in lieu of butt 
crack), and now ripped across the knees too.  He wears them nearly 
every day.  He loves them.  I'd like to burn them.  I'm turning into my 
mother.  I'm having flashbacks of her disgusted face and shrill nag 
when I wore this one particular pair of hip-huggers which my dad 
eventually banned altogether.

He wears them alternately with his other favorite pair which come with 
their own parade of grimy sub-parts, like stringy groupies, following 
along after him at the bottom where they have been ripped, dragged, 
safety pinned (tres punk), and ripped again.  Neither pair leaves home 
without the company of the dirty, torn pair of army green, low-top 
converse I bought him two years ago, which I'd also like to ash can.  
But these are sacred shoes and have important symbolic drawings all 
over them created by "friends who are girls".  These 
friends-who-are-girls named each of the shoes, Erma and somebody--their 
names are written across the top of each toe.  I'm not sure what is 
keeping the top attached to the sole.  He has other very nice shoes 
turning mouldy in the hall closet. I mention this each day in vain.  I 
try hard not to sound shrill, but there is a shrillness lurking in my 
genetic makeup.

So I found a pair of jeans for a reasonable price, at the one store he 
likes, and which say "super skinny" on the tag.  The kid is a stick, 
and he does not like anything the slightest bit baggy or loose, so I'm 
hoping that the "super skinny" tag, along with brand recognition, will 
at least entice him to try them on.  I'll wrap them up and give it a 
shot.  He probably won't like them and I will have wasted my time 
looking and buying and wrapping and feeling all hopeful about.  I have 
to try something because he's starting to look like Keith Richards from 
the waist down.

Julie