Tag: jeans

Vanity Is The Enemy (or what a gal will go through to look cool)

~ JodiLea

Have I mentioned that I’ve gained a few pounds? I blame hubby for this. He is losing weight and I keep finding it. I do not begrudge him for losing weight he needed to lose. In fact, he’s looking mighty fine 😉  these days. What I don’t understand is why he can’t lose weight at work. But that’s not what I’m here to rant about today.

I was getting dressed a couple of weeks ago, and I had to wear something nice to show up for jury duty. No problem – I had a nice pair of black pants to wear. These pants, that used to slide gracefully over my thighs and hips, stopped at my knees. It took some tugging (and cursing), but they finally made it up to (what used to be) my waistline.

Open Zipper

The bigger problem was the zipper. It could not and would not close.

I tore through my closet in search of a top long enough to cover my crotch. No tunic length shirts or sweaters anymore.  Must have given them to Good Will or somewhere.  I had 2 options:

  1. I could wear jeans anyway (they were tight, but the fly stayed closed)
  2. I could wear my “old-lady” pants with the elastic waist and no pockets. The tunic top would have come in handy to disguise them as normal pants, but they still had no pockets. I HATE not having pockets in my pants. Where do you put your Id? Your lunch money?

Lunch money. My brain switches gears back to High School. I was robbed of my lunch money by an unseen thief. She, I assumed it was a she because it happened in the girls bathroom, suddenly reached under the door, into my stall, and snatched my lunch money right off the top of my books. Literally caught with my pants down. Just one of many humiliations I suffered in High School.

High School. Switching gears again. A memory of my mom telling me about when she was in High School. It was the early 50’s and it was poodle skirts, crinolines (ask your grandma), and tight jeans. “So tight in fact”, she confessed to me, “that I had to lie down on my bed to zip them up”.

Her wisdom lives on, and she thought us girls never listened to her. 😉   Thanks Mom!!

It worked. Black pants zipped up and button closed.  Who knew that gravity could be my friend?

Being me, instead of feeling triumphant, I start worrying that the pressure put on the zipper by my flab would break it. I would have to pee at some point, which meant using the straining zipper. How would I get my fly closed again without my bed?

Did the zipper hold?  Amazingly it did. Even with peeing, it still worked. But not once, during the entire day, did my pants ever become comfortable. Ever.

Sooo, I’m working to lose the weight my hubby gave me. I don’t know how many pounds I gained because my denial reflex has not allowed me to get on the scale. It’s funny how it takes me three times longer to lose what he lost and I found.

Actually, it’s not  funny when I think about it.

Is there a moral to this story? Many of them, actually. Pick one  🙂

Post Re-Run: My War on Tags

~ JodiLea ~ 2 Comments

Original post published 11/10/2010 

I have very sensitive skin and I hate the way garment tags are always scratching & making me itch. In the old days if a tag bugged you, you simply borrowed your mom’s seam ripper out of her sewing box and removed a few stitches. Wa-Lah! Problem solved.

Things have changed. Not only do you have an annoying tag that is double sewed into your garment, but you may have 3 or 4 of them. Apparently one tag is not enough to convey all the manufacturer wants you to know. This information is so critical that they sew it not once, but twice into the garment.

Last week I bought some new “skinny” jeans. Even though I knew the size they claimed to be was a lie (I have never, nor will I ever be a size 4), I felt so svelte & sexy.  I changed into them as soon as I got home from the store, called 2 friends and made them guess what size jeans I was wearing, curled up on the couch with a good book and some snacks – hey I was skinny, I can eat! An hour later the jeans had to come off. I could not take the tags anymore. They were terrorizing my skin and I just wanted to scream. I think I did scream.

For a half-hour I painstakingly removed the little tiny stitches, and the ones under those, to free my fabulous new jeans of their gnarly parasites. After all that toil, the tag was still attached to my pants. They must be sewing them in 3 times these days. I sigh deeply and loudly cursed, then proceeded with my task. I spend another 15 minutes removing the little secret stitches, which by the way held a seam together, so now I have an hole in my brand new jeans. Oh- and yes, the tag remains.

Maybe you know this already, but I was naive and believed that I was only dealing with thread here. But no. The BASTARDS are now using GLUE. Tags are sealed to the garment by gluing them after they are sewn in. I still fume when I think about it.

OK, we get the fact you want the tag to remain with the garment. But why can’t you make a tag that is not scratchy? The garment is not scratchy, so obviously you have the technology. And what is the deal with tags so large you can write the Constitution on them? Or the five, count them five, tags sewn into one small (size 4 don’t ya know) pair of jeans? Three in the back, one in the front, and one on the outside seam below the hip.

The only person who sees these damn tags is me, and I am not happy with whoever made the garment.

And I know who you are. You made sure of that, didn’t you?

My War on Tags

~ JodiLea

I have very sensitive skin and I hate the way garment tags are always scratching & making me itch. In the old days if a tag bugged you, you simply borrowed your mom’s seam ripper out of her sewing box and removed a few stitches. Wa-Lah! Problem solved.

Things have changed. Not only do you have an annoying tag that is double sewed into your garment, but you may have 3 or 4 of them. Apparently one tag is not enough to convey all the manufacturer wants you to know. This information is so critical that they sew it not once, but twice into the garment.

Last week I bought some new “skinny” jeans. Even though I knew the size they claimed to be was a lie (I have never, nor will I ever be a size 4), I felt so svelte & sexy.  I changed into them as soon as I got home from the store, called 2 friends and made them guess what size jeans I was wearing, curled up on the couch with a good book and some snacks – hey I was skinny, I can eat! An hour later the jeans had to come off. I could not take the tags anymore. They were terrorizing my skin and I just wanted to scream. I think I did scream.

For a half-hour I painstakingly removed the little tiny stitches, and the ones under those, to free my fabulous new jeans of their gnarly parasites. After all that toil, the tag was still attached to my pants. They must be sewing them in 3 times these days. I sigh deeply and loudly cursed, then proceeded with my task. I spend another 15 minutes removing the little secret stitches, which by the way held a seam together, so now I have an hole in my brand new jeans. Oh- and yes, the tag remains.

Maybe you know this already, but I was naive and believed that I was only dealing with thread here. But no. The BASTARDS are now using GLUE. Tags are sealed to the garment by gluing them after they are sewn in. I still fume when I think about it.

OK, we get the fact you want the tag to remain with the garment. But why can’t you make a tag that is not scratchy? The garment is not scratchy, so obviously you have the technology. And what is the deal with tags so large you can write the Constitution on them? Or the five, count them five, tags sewn into one small (size 4 don’t ya know) pair of jeans? Three in the back, one in the front, and one on the outside seam below the hip.

The only person who sees these damn tags is me, and I am not happy with whoever the designer or manufacturer happens to be.

I know who you are. You made sure of that, didn’t you?