Thursday, January 17, 2008

The Saga of the Pants (part II)

Brought to you Live! from Vickery Towers...that's right folks, still no internet at home, but a friend did send me her old laptop yesterday, so i have a word processor. pretty awesome generous, huh? thanks a million, Annie. i checked on getting it adapted to access the net, but apparently no one supports windows 98 anymore.

Last week's headline news:
~Premature Attackulation in the Persian Gulf Avoided (phew!)
~Presidential Debates Continue (to make few proud to be americans)

and after the break, our lead story...
~Rick Goes Shopping Again


"excuse me, ma'am, i'm looking for some pants for my mom. can you help me?"
"sure, what size does she wear?"
i circle my arms in front of myself, fingertips 8 or 9 inches apart. "Big," i say. "i think she's pregnant."
the sales girl looks at me funny - i'm 56 years old myself - and asks, "have you tried the maternity department?"
"great idea! thanks. where is it?"
"we don't have one."

as patiently as i can muster, "just show me what you've got in size 20 - 24, please."

nearly an hour later i left with the only two pair in the entire store that might possibly fit and went to another store where i wandered around for at least an hour without ever seeing a sales person. the pants there were randomly placed in racks with jackets and shirts all over the place. i felt like a rat in a maze, a fish out of water...choose your own cliché. i imagined i was in a foreign land doomed to roam hopelessly, lost without any way to communicate with the natives (who were apparently invisible) for the rest of my life. at this point i was hoping the rest of my life would be a mercifully short time.

on my way out i passed the underwear department. AHA! maybe i won't have to leave empty handed after all.

30 minutes later i had achieved nothing - other than arrouse the suspicion of the other shoppers. all ladies, of course. i finally got up the nerve to ask one of them where i might find size 20 or so underpants, quickly adding "for my mom."
she was sorting through a rack of really large bras (my favorite) which were clearly too big for her and i was hopeful that she was shopping for her mother, too, and would take pity on me. maybe even offer to be my guide through the jungle of womens' undergarments.

"they don't sell panties that large in a store like this. you'll have to go to a Lane Brant."
"oh. where do i find Elaine?"
"no, Lane Bryant. it's a store that caters to plus size women. there's one in valley view shopping mall."
"thank you ma'am."

i left not only empty handed, but with dread in my gut. Valley View Mall...my worst nightmare - the suburban mall.

to be continued... (probably 2 or 3 installments to go, but it does have a happy ending. well, sort of.)

p.s. you may be wondering why i don't take mom with me to try stuff on. well, i'll tell you why. the last time my daughter, the lovely josephine, and her mom took her shopping it was for shirts. they were mortified when mom came out of the dressing room with no shirt on to look for something else to try on.
and that was 3 years ago! her condition has "progressed" immeasurably since then and besides...i'm talking pants and underpants here, not shirts.
sonny boy ain't goin' there. capiche?

9 comments:

~Betsy said...

You are a wonderful son, Rick! I can't wait to read part III. :)

Joanne said...

I'm with you, Rick. I don't do shopping malls--not even the ones that aren't in heavy traffic areas. Love the saga of the pants. Can't wait to read part III. If all else fails, try WalMart in the plus sizes. They have a dressier type jogging pants with elastic waistband in size 1X, 2X, and all the way up to 5X. They aren't as long as they are wide, either. I didn't have to hem the ones I got Mom. She wore the 2X when we first started, but she's down to the XLarge in regular sizes now. You're a great son for doing all you do for your mom. ((hugs))

rainbowheart said...

Rick,
I love your blogsite. You are too funny at times..love the tree bar..

dann walsh said...

rick, rick, rick!

too funny... and i doo capiche!

dann

Anonymous said...

Is it inappropriate to giggle at the word pictures provided in your post, Rick? Sorry, I couldn’t help myself!

I would suggest WalMart as well, especially if you think you may need another size in the near future! They have a plus size section, underwear and everything else! Target used to carry some plus sizes too. Also, if you’re able willing to do it, online shopping works best, there is a larger selection of plus sizes. Try Romans and Lane Bryant online, there is a much larger selection of clothing than in the store AND you’ll have the additional bonus of not having the sales clerk and shoppers watching you browse that underwear section!! ;-)

Susan M said...

Rick, I'm sorry you're having to go thru this. I did all the clothes buying for my MIL and she too went up pant sizes for no apparent reason. She was tiny,(5 feet and that was stretching it) and we ended up in size 16 because her belly had gotten sooooooo big. Turned out it was fluid retention because of her heart.

Lordy,lordy how I hated driving to Valley View from Southlake. Did find at the old Foley's(now Macy's) that Dunner casuals, usually on sale did fit and saved the hemming problem. And there are other brands as well. Try petites, or better yet as someone said, shop on-line.

About 6 months into this problem Mom started to lose weight. Again for no apparent reason. Size 16's were given away she never wore.

Please have your Mom checked out for any problems. Or maybe the sweet tooth has taken over.

Thanks for your blog. Never have posted before, but read all the time

¸.•*´)ღ¸.•*´Chris said...

I can just see you meandering through panties and bras looking all distressed and a little fascinated, if I do say so myself. No worries, those things scare me too and I wear them!

Unknown said...

Hi, duude.
I hate shopping too. Especially Wal-Mart. Have you considered going online. Briggs.com has exactly what you are looking for in a countless array of colors, sizes and other options. Inexpensive, and once you find what works you can reorder as needed without getting in your car. ( I sound like an ad-man, huh?
Got my dad some elastic waist jeans that he loves (big belly, short legs, impossible to buy for). I think that their return policy is way easy too, though I haven't had to do that.

When are you coming to see Lucy and me? There's only a few months left til she's gone. (And there's no telling how much time I have left...)
l,
s.

Unknown said...

I'm an idiot. Blair.com, not Briggs.com

sorry about that.

http://www.blair.com/