Forever in Blue Jeans

While fantasizing about the Mega Millions with an old friend, I said, “I’d be the millionaire who people wouldn’t know was a millionaire, like I’d be rich, but I’d still be in the jeans I had on since Tuesday.”

While I have plenty of slacks, corduroys, sweat pants, and shorts, I live in my blue jeans.

Recently, I had to throw away an old, worn-out pair of trusty Levi’s. It was a sad, sorrowful day. I kept a lot of memories in those pants: keys, wallet, iPhone, and recollections. If I could have given them a 21-gun salute before tossing them into a bright-yellow bag labeled “Veterans Affairs,” I would have.

P.S. I’m not sure any old Army guys would want or need my cast-off clothes, but it felt better than throwing them in the garbage. I suspect that once they arrive at VA headquarters, the Colonel of Clothing, overseeing the Pants Division (with medals on his chest and epaulets on his shoulders), will judge them unworthy of further use and toss them into the big blue bin behind the building.

But I digress, like I do. My memories aren’t misty or watercolored, but I left them in my pants. Sadly, most of the memories in the aforementioned britches contain embarrassing moments. Those jeans hold trips, slips, falls, and spots (water, spaghetti sauce, paint, honey, mud, and more).

I had a multitude of memories cascade through my brain, all involving those particular pants: the time they fell to the ankles at airport security (search the Observer-Reporter archives for the rest of that story), unzipped flies, and various splashes of water that masqueraded as incontinence. One incident with a water fountain (“a bubbler” to my Boston friends) that sprayed me so hard I looked like a second-grader who didn’t get the hall pass from the teacher in time.

My ability to retrieve these embarrassing memories has never been sharper than the time I walked into a men’s room, went to unzip, and realized my fly was already down. Suddenly, I was able to evaluate every minute of my day leading up to that point. I went over every single interaction, identifying and indexing everyone who crossed my path.

It was an itemized list. Luckily, I was behind the desk most of the day. I had sat in a few Zoom meetings, where pants, though required, were unseen. I remembered talking to someone at the copier, but my crotch was covered by a box of paper that I was carrying.

I don’t need Ginkgo biloba; embarrassing situations will jog my memory faster than any herb or pill.

There’s nothing like a trusty pair of blue jeans, whether they are skinny, straight-leg, boot-cut, flared, wide-leg, high-waisted, low-risers, jeggings, distressed, cargo, or floods. It doesn’t matter if you cuff them like you’re Arthur Fonzarelli or if your kids call them your mom jeans.

I have like 57 pairs of jeans, but there’s nothing like the old ones: Adios, my denim companion.