“I’m buying new jeans!” I announced to Jess one morning after realizing I full-blown dreaded “Jeans Day” at work. It was a startling realization, indeed, but admitting there’s a problem is the first step to recovery. 

Jean’s Day came every Friday and served as the employees’ lone reward for making it through the work week. It allowed us little people to break free the protocol fetters of corporate dress, ditch the Khakis and throw on a nice, comfortable pair of denim. It was the unspoken substitute for a raise, and yet, I found myself staring at my closet, yearning to slide on a pair of dress pants instead. What was the matter with me?

After dismissing the Freudian blaim-the-parents theory, I made a loose review of my jean situation. There, I discovered the source of these ailing emotions. Basically, I had three pair left to my name – my Abercrombie’s, my Gap’s and my Plato’s Closet Abercrombie Super Flairs, cut an inch too short. Now, three’s not a bad number, but, the problem was, they were all on their last leg – no pun intended.

I ran all three in an even rotation, washing only when necessary. My Abercrombie jeans, however, developed a hole in the knee which grew bigger by the day and I was down to two I could wear confidently in public. 

To be fair to the reader, it must be mentioned here that I do own a fourth pair of Abercrombie jeans. These have seen Clinton’s presidency. Three months ago, without warning, all the denim blew out in them, thankfully leaving intact the zipper and seat for me to work with. It was as if all the thread went on strike at once. When I wear them, a distance observer may question if I’m even wearing pants, for a fair amount of skin shows. It’s not unusual for a pocket of car keys to swing out the fashionable hole in the thigh, banging in perfect measure on the outside of my pants as I walk. Now, the ragged bottoms are buried in my dresser drawer, sprung free only for roofing projects.    

My two remaining jeans neither feel nor look cool. My “Super Flairs”, well, let’s be honest, are just a dumb pair of jeans. They’re stupidly cut and their bell bottoms could devour the thickest of walking casts. It also has the annoying habit of exposing the entire length of the white of my sock as well as revealing a pale sliver of leg whenever I sit.

My Gap jeans are equally annoying in that the leg cuffs have somehow disintegrated, leaving holes big enough to loop the heels of my shoes. An overly bouncy step is greeted with a tug in back.

Anway, I hadn’t bought new jeans in over five years. Strangely, it made me nervous. I wasn’t exactly up-to-date on the jean fashion, and it pained me to waste a $100 on a pair. I’d given up on buying second hand clothing, which were always an odd fit anway, broken and stretched as they were by the bulges and curves of the original wearer. 

So, in an effort to avoid the mistake of buying jeans I’d later become embarrassed about wearing, I conducted a secret (and somewhat disturbing) market research analysis. I spent much time in crowds eye-balling the backs of men – never in a weird way, mind you, but strictly for the gathering of data.

In church, my most effective studies took place during the meet-and-greet, when people stood up. I’d shake their hands – “good morning” – then once they turned I’d go right to work absorbing their backsides, taking extensive mental notes. Although, it likely made everyone involved quite uncomfortable (this couldn’t be helped), it was necessary to discover the brand of jeans guys my age were wearing these days. 

After weeks of reading the butts of men, the belt soon became my greatest enemy. It hid the brand names, making the process most tedious and bothersome. It took several extra glances and a problem-solving mind to piece together the information that was only half-showing that I so desperately needed.   

But finally, after weeks of living like this, I concluded my research and felt happy with the results. I headed over to Macy’s to find some Levi’s. When I first got there, Jess spotted a table of some with cool washes and cuts. Having done my research, I knew the style now leaned toward a tighter, straighter leg look. I excitedly grabbed a pair of what was called the ”skinny” fit in my size and made a beeline for the dressing rooms. Jess thought I needed the boot fit. To this, I insisted that she get with the times.

The legs of these pants tappered so hard that I could barely get them on over my socks. After a good five minute struggle, I finally got them zipped and buttoned. I faced the dressing room mirror, and staring back at me was a sight so ridiculous that it had to be illegal. I busted out laughing. It was nothing short of denim spandex. Jess hurried in to see and buckled in laughter. I didn’t know I had a gut… 

“You really need the boot fit,” she said. This time I agreed.    

Miraculously I peeled the things off. In the end, the boot fit was what worked. They fit perfectly, and jeans never felt so good. Jess gave the thumbs up and we both drove home with smiles on our faces.

Now I need to find some shorts for summer that fit. Just do yourself and me a favor, will ya? Email me the brand and style of shorts you wear and we’ll just call it the day.   

Categories: Fashion
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Today is the start of my vacation!  And since today’s schedule holds no particular shape or form, I decided it only necessary that my writing should follow suit. I just want to free write, and maybe in the end something I wrote will maybe make sense to someone somewhere. That’s the cool thing about writing, so much of it is subjective. So take from it what you will.

Yes, that’s right, no work for me today. But poor Jess had to still go in. Something about a potluck, a secret angel (same thing as a secret santa, I guess) gift for a co-worker, and one last Christmas shin-dig for her preschool class before handing the rowdy buggers over to their parents till next year, all wound up on sugar overdoses and ideas of presents.

This morning I slept in just a bit. Instead of my usual 5:45am early rise, I allowed myself an extra hour or so to make it a solid eight hour night. Jess, running late, barked instructions from the shower how to make the fruit smoothies. This, I knew, was serious business. In the past few months, She had grown highly disciplined in the art of morning smoothies. Being my first attempt at it, I could tell in her voice that she didn’t trust me all the way. Neither one of us did.

“One kiwi, one banana, one canned fruit, one cup of yogurt, six frozen strawberries, six ice cubes, and then press ‘mix’. Run it until the noise stops,” she said. “And make sure the lid is on tight or it will blow all over the place.”

I entertained the image of the purple smoothie dripping from the counter tops.

“Six ice cubes?” I asked

“Six ice cubes.”

In the kitchen I gathered all the necessary ingredients, as directed, and tossed them in one by one into the blender. One banana – check – that was easy. Six ice cubes and six frozen strawberries – check – easy. But when it came time to add the kiwi, unfamilar with the fuzzy walnut looking thing (are there kiwi trees?), I was forced to go back for further instruction.

“Do I just throw the kiwi in with its skin?” I asked.

“No, peel it first.”

My confidence shaky, I approached it as I would an orange: gouged out the navel, then tore at the opening in hopes the skin would detach as one easy sheet. But the kiwi’s skin is thin and frail and pulled off only in tiny bits and pieces. Five minutes later, I found myself still picking at the stupid thing, the same method I’d probably employ for plucking a very small chicken. Kiwi stuck under my fingernails and my hands were sticky and useless. But finally, after extreme persistance, the green, fleshy fruit stared back at me, naked and defeated. This was one fruit I’d be happy to blend. Later, I’d learn that a knife works better to slice the skin off, a little insider information sure to cut the terrible task down to thirty seconds.

The canned pineapples were last to go, but not without a fight. Is the fruit in rebellion? The tab broke off when I tried to open it, and Jess, with towel on head and rolled eyes, shoved the unruly can in the electric can opener, which I still can’t get to work.

“Haven’t you ever opened canned fruit before?” she asked.

“Yeah. Twenty years ago,” was my only line of defense.

Freed from their imprisonment, I dumped the pineapples into the blender and hit “mix”. Jess disappeared down the hall to what sounded like rocks in a garbage disposal.

In the end, it all turned out. And, I don’t mean to brag, but let’s just say I make a pretty darn good smoothie. Jess soon relieved me of my work and poured a glass for her and one for me, then outfitted both with straws. We prayed first, still unsure if smoothies count as food to be blessed. After two slurps, Jess shot up with her cup, indicating it was time to go.    

I waved good-bye as Jess smiled brightly back. Jess’s smile and her car shrunk into the gray distance. With her gone, all that was left to watch was the quiet sky, thick and lonely, like a colorless smoothie. Then, studying the rich purple contents of my glass, I realized Jess was my bright-colored smoothie in an otherwise gray morning. I took another sip from my straw. It tasted great. And the kiwi was definitely worth all the effort.                

Categories: Food, Life, Marriage
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Warning: I Am Legend, starring Will Smith, is not for the faint hearted. Just whatever you do, stay away from the dark. I’m not kidding.

During one particular stressful movie scene, I contemplated calling 9-1-1. The diagnosis is still out, but I’m ninty-nine percent sure I suffered a mild heart attack and a slipped disc from jumping in my seat. At any rate, the claw marks in my arm rest will forever be a monument to the terror I felt as a hyperventilating Will Smith whispering for his lost dog so as not to be heard, searched the screaming, dark corners of the darkest places with the tiniest flash light. Somewhere along the way, a camera man had to have gotten bitten while filming. And that reminds me, I still need to schedule a dental appointment for these molars I grinded to the nubs. 

But, by the grace of God, my wife and I held on till the movie’s end and discovered the Jesus story in the most unlikely of places. In case you wondered what this film is about - based on the previews, which are blatantly mute on its subject matter - it can be summed up in one Bible verse: “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. (John 1:5)”  

Going in, I half expected the basic jist to be nothing more than a last man on earth sort of flick, where humanity had once again been eliminated by a virus, a bomb or an ill-received climate change. I expected Will Smith roaming a vacant city, desperately seeking at least one other human to talk to. And it was…at first.

The first half hour, the plot felt nice and comfortable. A false relaxation seeped into our unsuspecting bones as strains of Bob Marley plucked lightly in the background like a breezy Jamaican sunset. We were suggested to not worry – “about a thing.” Like gullable little children, we happily accepted the reggae king’s advice. We were fools.

Not to give away too much but, just when I thought it safe to breathe, the plot’s predictability ran out and the movie transformed into what I first considered a demonic roller coaster. Lots of things jumped out from lots of places. And to intensify the effect, at one point during the movie a man in a long coat found it necessary to dash past our seats, nearly causing me to drop my popcorn, if I had some. The long-coated man probably just wanted out of there. Heck, we all wanted out of there. The movie theater was an insane ball of fright, with Will Smith as our half-crazy leader (he argues with mannequins, for crying out loud). 

Everytime I checked on Jess, her hands covered her face and she whimpered to leave. 

“But we got to know how it ends,” I’d say, in a false comforting tone.

Only toward the end did we discover to our delight, despite all the raw soberness of the scenes we’d just lived through (the experience itself probably knocked a few years off my life), that the movie illuminated obvious Christian undertones. There was a definite message and purpose here, something other than just scaring us to our knees.   

Turned out, it told the story of God and the sickness of sin in humanity; how humans are diseased-ridden mutations of what we originally were meant to be before Adam and Eve ate the fruit. How destructive, selfish, hate-filled and violent sin has made us. And still, though humanity has rejected God, spit in His face, even killed God, God, in all His infinite generosity and mercy, still continues to offer the only cure – Jesus - to us for as long as we live.     

Leaving the theater, I felt an undefined sense of myself. As I went along, I realized I felt distraught. But it was no longer because of the film’s content. I had seen myself on that screen. I had seen myself as I once was from the perspective of a Holy, Loving God – my Best Friend who reached out to me, loved me anyway despite my attacks against Him, saying, “I can heal you if you just stop and listen. If you just trust me, I can make you better. I know it does not make sense now, but it will once you see.” And it took way too long, but I finally accepted His advice. Now, when God sees me, He sees His Son. 

Overwhelmed by God’s love for me, an empty sorrowfulness passed through me for all the years I didn’t love Him. Yes – I am thankful to know God now, but it dawned on me more real than before that God experiences serious heart ache to save each and every one of us. He places Himself in our abusive paths for a chance that we might know Him. And those who reject God all the way to the grave, well, I imagine God is forever sick over it.      

Categories: Christianity, Movies
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Wednesday morning, the world, usually pitch black at 6am, possesed a curious phosphoresence. Overnight, the first snow of the season had transformed the typical early morning colors into what seemed like the stage of the Nutcracker. The world felt fresher, the oxygen breathed more richly. Consumed by this magic, my mind reverted back to my childhood. I felt that old familiar pang of excitement over a possible school cancellation.

This school boy abandon quickly fled once I noticed my driveway buried in two feet of snow. That meant work for me. The winter version of the Biblical flood had hit Columbus, and unfortunately, someone needed to shovel. If only I had a snow shovel…

Unfortunately, I didn’t own one. If I remembered right, this was the same problem I had last winter. One measly blizzard last March, and the snow shovel shortage of the century suddenly swept the state. Lowe’s, Home Depot, Walmart – none had them in stock. I never checked, but I bet they were going on Ebay for roughly the same price as Ohio State/Michigan tickets. Store clerks laughed in my face when I asked them to direct me to the snow shovel department.

“Will any of your other locations have ‘em?” I’d ask.

“You can try,” they answered, with a tsk-tsk-tsk-like air.

I swore this would never happen to me again. Next time I’d be first in line. I’d buy mine in June. But summer came and the heat of the days made any thoughts of snow vanish. By the time fall rolled around, I’d stroll carelessly by rows of shovels at Lowe’s. There are so many; they won’t run out. Plus it’s not near snowy or wintry enough to buy one now. Maybe next week. There’s time - duped by the universal lie. To make a long story short, I never bought one.

Well, now I was paying for it. After slipping back and forth to work in my tiny Ford front-wheel drive, and after taking a series of spills in the work parking lot, straining a groin muscle, I decided to use my lunch break to finally go buy a snow shovel.

I went to Lowe’s. I Tracked through the dirty parking lot slush and slidding doors with damp pant bottoms. Wasting no time, I made a beeline for the nearest red-vested Lowe’s employee. In an aisle of snow blowers, she worked hard punching buttons on a hand-held electronic device. It resembled a chintzy, Dr. Who laser gun.

“Excuse me,” I asked, using my sorry-to-trouble-you voice. “But do you know where I can find the snow shovels?”

“All we have is in front where you walk in,” she said, still operating the Dr. Who gun. It made a beep.

Unable to remember, I probably uttered a weak joke to cover the embarrassement of having just walked right by them on my way in. I thanked her for her detailed directions and made my way over to the limbo part of the store located between the outdoor and indoor entrances. Inside, every step tripped one or both of the automatic sliding doors. I searched the area for shovels while the doors slid frantically on their rails. Open, close; open, close.  

Finally, a cardboard box of plastic handles near the indoor entrance attracted my attention. ”Snow Shovels – $20″ was scrawled in permanent market on a sign. I held my breath and gained a better look at what appeared to be sand shovels.       

Surely this isn’t all they have, I thought. The Dr. Who woman made a mistake. These aren’t even two feet long, and would easily snap under the pressure of a full load of snow. What’s the point.

As if trapped in a horror movie, I took flight for the nearest Lowe’s employee. Barely able to restrain from snatching two fists full of his red vest and demanding to know if the sand shovels were their idea of some sick joke, I calmed down just enough to ask him if that’s all they had.

“Yup,” he said, with his quality customer service mock sympathy. “We ran out earlier today.”

“Will you be getting more in?” I asked.

“I hope so,” was the only help he offered.

I tromped back to my car through the slushy parking lot, defeated, angry that I lived in a world where kiddie sand shovels could be sold for snow shovels – for $20. Later that day I found out that the weekend was suppossed to bring warm weather. This brought some relief. I would only be the neighborhood slob for a day or two, until the snow melted. And as the work day ended and I headed back home on the cleared roads, I thoroughly convinced myself that I will never let this happen to me again.        

Categories: Life, Nature, Shopping
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