Why I'm Wearing Leather Pants...

I get a catalog from an outfit called The Sportsman's Guide that sells hunting, fishing and camping gear and I have been ordering stuff from them for years. I have been able to complete my Christmas shopping from home for several years now, as they sell everything under the sun, not just camo clothing and boots, but home furnishings, jewelry, toys, and girly stuff too.

Well about eight years ago I purchased a pair of leather pants from them. I am not much of a leather wearing kind of a guy, as most of the leather I own is in the boots and holster category, but they were incredibly cheap and I figured, "What the hell?" I had just seen the movie The Doors and watched Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison strut from scene to scene in these leather pants and I wondered why he never wore anything else. Then it occurred to me that these pants would last forever and would never need to be washed, two qualities that appeal to a lazy cheap bastard like me. So I bought them. The ones I own look exactly like the ones pictured above.

The ad for them did advise that the legs would need to be hemmed at the bottom, but that was easy enough with Superglue. I tried them on and they fit like they had been tailor-made for me, roomy but not baggy, and the satin lining made them very soft, not to mention they are very warm when a winter chill is in the air. The only thing is, I never got around to hemming the legs as I could never seem to remember to purchase the Superglue when I was at the store, so I hung them in the closet and promptly forgot about them.

Eight years later, I remembered the Superglue.

I put them on last night and they still fit great, even though my waist size has grown by one. I asked Flannery to roll up the cuffs and mark them so that I could finish the job I should have done eight years ago. "The legs are tapered," she pointed out, "they are only going to look right if you tuck them into your boots. They don't need hemmed." Alright, I could have been wearing them for eight years now but it takes a loving wife to point that out to me. Okay, fine.

"Besides, they look too new. They look like a mid-life crisis happening. They need to look old and worn, not fresh off the shelf." Okay, so now I need to break in eight year old pants so I don't look like a dufus?

"Alright, I'll wear them around the house until the look run in and then I'll wear them out in public."

"And you had better let them air out occasionally so they don't smell like sweaty ball-sack all the time," she warned. It takes a loving wife to point these things out.

So now I'm spending my time puttering around the house, washing, cleaning, cooking and chasing kids, wearing leather pants in an effort to make them look well worn.

But even when they look run in, I'm afraid I will still look like a dufus.

Doc