In Search of Pants

Before I moved to Dublin, Peter and I hit the outlet mall. Hard. I stocked up on work clothes from Ann Taylor, the Gap and Banana Republic. I bought two pairs of comfy black shoes from Clarkes and fruitlessly searched for the right size Converse All-Star High Tops.

I knew clothes were going to be a lot more expensive in Dublin and that money would be tight at first. Better to stock up than get caught out. This worked great for the last six months because the clothes were all spring clothes and summer in Dublin is fairly similar to spring in Chicago.

But now that we’re sliding in to fall, my wardrobe has some chinks in the armoire, if I can make a really lame pun. I have no suitable black pants. I have black suit pants, but I have nothing that I’d want to wear to a pub or to work in a business-casual environment. So today I set out to try to remedy this problem.

Let me stop here to say that my List of Things I Absolutely Hate To Do goes something like this (starting with the most dreaded):

1. Go to the dentist.
   
2. Go to the gynecologist.
   
3. Pierce my ears with a rusty sewing needle.
   
4. Go shopping for pants.
   
5. Sit on a bus full of obnoxious Spanish exchange student.
   

Why do I hate shopping for pants? Because I am five feet tall with an ample ass – today’s mass-market pants are just not made for a woman like me. Mass-market pants are made for freakish Amazonian women who don’t mind if the world gets to see their ass cracks on a regular basis.

I tried on about 25 pairs of pants in five different stores. I also walked into countless other stores and didn’t even bother to go through the dressing room charade. There is an annoying fashion in pants over here at the moment – the ridiculously flared bell-bottom legs. All I wanted was a pair of straight-legged black cotton pants. All I could find were these 70s throwback monstrosities. When the circumference of the pant leg is longer than the distance from my knee to my ankle, something is just wrong in Pantland.

When I put on some of these pants, I looked like a little kid playing dress-up. With one pair, the flared cuffs billowed out for about a foot. Or at least they would have if I hadn’t been standing on eight inches of extra pant leg. WNBA players, I’ve found your pants. I’m still looking for mine though.

I bought a pair of khaki green cargo pants because they were cute, had ankle ties to strap down the parachute-like pant legs, and I thought they were 15 euro. They turned out to be 30 euro and I ended up returning them an hour after I bought them. I was disappointed the store clerk didn’t ask me why I was returning them. I was going to plead temporary insanity.

After exhausting all the shopping possibilities in Dun Laoghaire, I took the Dart into the city centre. I struck out in town as well. The pants I want are apparently woefully out of fashion. Looking like Jamie Gertz in the Lost Boys is all the rage this season. I could get a raggy skirt and a jacket that would make Sergeant Pepper proud. I could get a pair of cargo pants that could carry actual cargo. I could go the preppy route and get a cute little checked sweater vest. But I cannot, for all of the euro in Dublin, get a simple fecking pair of black straight-leg cotton pants.

First stop when I visit the family in Cleveland: Aurora Premium Outlet Mall. I’ll be the maniac buying half a dozen pairs of plain black pants.