Pants - The Family Heirloom

Pants – The Family Heirloom

I was four years old, or maybe three when I got my first pair o’ long pants; REAL long pants that is. They was just like my dad’s long Sunday pants too, only better. Mom had got hold of an old army coat – maybe from WWI and turned it into a pair o’ long pants for me for the winter. She could do magical things with that old Singer sewin’ machine o’ hers an’ she sure done it this time! Well that pair o’ pants was a complete disaster from the first time I wore ‘em an’ backed into an ice cold tub o’ water. The point is that ever since then (or even before) I was fascinated with long pants. Well actually, I’da preferred bib overalls for all the big people’s pockets they had like a bullet lighter pocket an’ a watch pocket, but all them brass buttons an’ fasteners was too much to ask for.

Of course later on I had to go through the phase o’ breeches, which were the dumbest thing I ever wore. I never seen anybody wear them much other than the Mounties, an’ I didn’t see much o’ them neither. Finally, when I was able to earn some o’ my own money, I could start to buy the kind of LONG pants I wanted. That presented more problems than solutions, but the biggest problem was the least noticeable, that being MY MOTHER! All my life since that fateful day at three (or four) she was dictating what kind of pants I would wear.

An’ there ya have it! Slowly, imperceptibly women learn to dictate what pants a man wears. It starts with the mothers, is seen by the sisters an’ inch by inch it becomes ingrained in the man’s mind until he becomes submissive without even realizin’ it. It took me a while to figure that out. I couldn’t never imagine what kept happening to my favorite pants with the elastic waist an’ the cuffs I can roll up.

“Oh they’re in the wash” the Missus said, or “Yer not wearin’ them raggedy things when you go out with me!” she said. Or, “I threw them out so’s you’d wear somethin’ decent.” she said.

Then she said “Here, put these on.” An’ I said (reluctantly), “Okay then.”

An that’s how we men wear the pants in the family. Or at least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.