Ray Halliday: His Pants Situation

I was gonna write about either my traumatic trip to the DMV or my pants. My pants is the shorter of the two, and it is less traumatic, and I have all sorts of stuff to do today. So, please, pineapple people, let me tell you about my pants.


Because of pineapple and all of its fruity friends and leafy green cousins, I have been enjoying life and health and all that feel-good crap. But I've got a pants problem you can probably imagine. My pants no longer fit me. I've notched up my old belt as good as I can (two new holes!) and still, I've been yanking up my pants. If my hands are full, no matter which pair of pants I'm wearing, forget it, classic comedy ensues.

So, I bought three pair of pants recently, and happily or sadly (you be the judge!) I underestimated the power of pineapple, and got them all too big. Brand new pants, and they all fall down.

But, luckily, across the hall is guy, a wonderful guy. During the very late nineties I was actually going through some stuff that made me very thin for awhile and then later, I started gaining weight. It was sad, because it wasn't healthy weight. It was sad weight.

And, slowly, as I gained, I bought new pants. Sad pants, because they are not the pants you want. They are the pants you are settling for because your self is now, for whatever reason, out of your control.

I gave up my pants. Gave them to the Thrift Store. Said goodbye. Goodbye, pants, you will be missed. Pants are good because they cover your legs and your crotch and your heiny. I am thankful for pants.

There was this series of pants I was reluctant to let go of. They were a group of Levi's jeans. They were my favorites. They fit well. But mostly, they were jeans of color. Levis, for a while anyway, was making their jeans in all sorts of fun blues and greens and browns. And I found a size and cut that really worked for me, and bought about six pairs. My legs and crotch and heiny were all set.

I kept them and kept them, even when my other pants were all gone. They were my goals. Get back. Get back, Ray Halliday, to the pants you belong in. But, finally, after them sitting in my closet, unused for years, I finally threw in the pants-towel.

But not completely. I'm really smart, you see. Or, I'm so attached to things that my attachment makes me crafty. Because, around 2003 or whatever, I was ready to quit having these pants taunt me from my closet. But I couldn't give them up forever. I sneakily measured the guy across the hallway's waist, and asked him, "Q." Yes, his name is Q. "Want some pants?"

He did. He looked great in them. I was proud to have given them to such a worthy donor. Whenever I would see him in them there was much rejoicing. Both for pants and for people and for a society that gives and shares and gains weight and wears pants. Huzzah!

So, the other day I asked him, "Q, you ready to give up those pants?"

And, I picked him for a very special reason. He is the only guy in the world who would happily, with a genuine smile, be able to give up a series of pants like this. Now, I've seen his closet. The big challenge will be if he can find them. But, he delivered a pair of brown, clean Levis. My old friends! Still, not a hole or tear in them.

But to my chagrin, I had overstepped my bounds. These pants were an inch smaller in the waist than I had anticipated. I had fooled myself, over the sad and longy years, and had messed with the numbers in my head. I still had a ways to go.

Or did I?

I wouldn't even try the Q-pants on. I just laid them over a chair and welcomed them back to the apartment. Showed them around. I had to carry them to the kitchen, into the newly painted bathroom and hallway. The pants, as you can guess, were somewhat miffed, "What's going on? Why are we being carried around? Why aren't we walking around ourselves? Put us on, for goodness sake."

No, I couldn't go through that.

Then, yet another pair of new pants came in the mail. And inch less than the ones I'd been buying, and once again, they were all fally-offy.

Could it be?

I looked at those old Levis, and they nodded back to me. Come on, Ray Halliday, try us on.

And I did. And here I am, wearing pants.

Now, I may have my memory off a bit, because I know this will seem incredible. But I'm pretty sure these are the pants I rode in on, arrived in San Francisco wearing them, a lifetime ago, in September of 1991.