As my weight has gone up and down over the years, I occasionally have to abandon an entire wardrobe as Too Small or Too Big. When it's Too Small, I don't usually give them all away. I go through and pick out the items I like least and then my former cleaning lady joyously ships them off to El Salvador, which is where she is from. At this moment, entire families are living in pants I wore before Gastric Bypass Surgery.
I put the items I like best into storage, optimistically believing I will one day be the right size for them again. Since the operation in 2006, I have again donned many of those items. I have even watched them go from being The Right Size to Too Big.
The other day, I once again decided it was time to stop wearing trousers that were a little too big on me and switch to trousers that will be for a time, a little too small on me. So El Salvador gets my old jeans and the former cleaning lady is very happy. I sometimes feel I'm losing the weight just for her.
When I was gaining and going from size to size, I sometimes didn't realize what was happening. This is because of something I call The Creeping Trouser Self-Deception. Here is how it works…
You go in to buy new pants and you tell the sales clerk, "I have a 36 waist." He fetches samples and you try 'em on. The Levis and Dockers fit fine but the Haggar slacks are a little snug.
"The Haggars run a little small," the clerk tells you as he hauls out a pair of them in 38. You try them on and they fit exactly like the size 36 Dockers you just selected. Okay, fine. You take them all home, not pausing to wonder if maybe you've put on a few pounds around the mid-section. After all, you're still wearing a 36.
But what you forget is that you're also wearing a 38. And next time you go in for jeans, you're buying Levis that size, and the time after, the Wrangler jeans seem tight in 36 so the clerk suggests a 38…
…and up and up you go.
Further complicating all this are pants with elastic waistbands which allow you to think you're wearing a 36 when it's really being stretched to a 40. I used to have a pair of jeans that had that plus they were made out of some sort of stretchy material…and no matter how large I got, they fit. It's hard to take your weight gain seriously when you're wearing the same pants you were wearing two years ago.
I don't know where those pants are now. It wouldn't surprise me if Cirque Du Soleil is staging a show inside them at this very moment. Next time I go to one of their tents, I'm going to see if we enter through a zipper in the front.