Pants Mission

Yesterday I took R. shopping for pants, which is both rather a huge deal and makes it seem like this blog is all about the pants area, which it’s not.

Since 2007 he has only worn shorts, and I suggested that he might be more successful in his job hunt with pants on. I didn’t go into the part about how when it’s 40 degrees and raining, wearing shorts could potentially, and I’m not saying I do this, but could lead one to assume you have poor decision making skills or something. Would someone wearing shorts in the cold rainy winter know that the lettuce doesn’t go at the bottom of the bag?

We went to a bunch of stores and he tried on, oh, maybe 83 pairs of pants, and none really worked, so we finally went to the Gap, which undoubtedly takes advantage of children in far-away lands to make fashionable pants for first world hipsters, as is probably the case for every store we went in.

But I’m kind of proud of The Gap because the American Family Association is boycotting them. The AFA is pissed that The Gap hasn’t mentioned Christmas in any of their ads, and the Gap responded by saying something like, hey, people celebrate lots of things but they all wear pants and we’re good with that. Which royally pissed off the Christian right, causing me to go, "huh?"

Lemme get this straight. The AFA believes that Christmas should be focused on Jesus’ birth, and it shouldn’t be commercialized, but if you’re selling stuff, you damn well better mention that you’re targeting people who are celebrating the birth of Jesus? I’m sitting here trying to wrap my brain around that logic and come up with an analogy to explain it, but I’m just not that strong.

My effort did lead me to search for analogies on the internet, one of which was, “John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.” I think that’s as good of an analogy as I’m going to come up with for this boycott.

At any rate, the hip male employee helped R. out, thus ending his 3-year no-pants streak. The thing about looking for a job these days is that you can do a lot of it on the internets. You don’t even really need the pants.

R. was working on an application to a major grocery chain when he came to the question of gender. There was a drop-down list of choices: 1) do not wish to disclose; 2) male 3) female; 4) unknown. Really, unknown? I am familiar with the fact that there are gender ambiguous people, but seriously, we’re talking about bagging groceries here. Does it seem like someone's chromosomal make-up shouldn't be so relevant?

After our hard-won success at the pants, we went to celebrate with M. Well, actually we ate at the restaurant where she works, so she didn't celebrate much, except for stealing a few bites from my plate. While there, we learned a bit more about the gang that some of the employees belong to.

Here’s how it goes: it was started Long Ago, like 15 years back. The name of this gang, which I wouldn’t want to reveal for obvious reasons (they like to “crush” people) is similar to “Animosity Village,” only bigger and meaner. To be in it, you need the signatures of all of the current members on a petition. To entice them to sign, one must buy drinks for current members until they decide that you should be in. One of the percs is that they have a shoulder patch. I know! So you can see why someone would want to join. It does crack me up to imagine these angry gang members developing the patch and the membership paperwork.

One of M’s co-workers is trying to get in, and has garnered 2.5 signatures over the past month. (Yes, someone decided to only put their first name down for the moment.) Only 97.5 sigs to go… Again, I’m all, huh? Who would want to do that, and who would want to be in a club with a bunch of insecure suck-ups? Oh wait, did I say that out loud? If there aren't posts soon, you'll know what happened...

As always, thanks for reading...