I Bought Parachute Pants and They Made me a Badass.*
The instant my eyes met with the silky, gossamer finish of those parachute pants, I was a goner. I virtually sprinted to the registers, knocking into small children and meandering jackwads while holding that sweet, sweet 2-legged garment against my racing heart.
But even in my initial bliss of pant-smittenhood, I had no idea how much they would change my life.*
Today I wore them to work, and I almost died from the amazingness. The multitude of pockets, the luxe sheen, the random zippers and chains dangling from various pantal areas; it was everything I thought it would be and more.
I sat at my desk like any other day, processing invoices, but I wasn’t just processing invoices.
I mean, I was, but I was also a hip-hop dancer. And not one of the crappy ones. I was like a whirling mix between a J-Lo backup dancer and an Urban Dance Camp superstar.
Downright acrobatic and bad AF.
I pushed my chair back from my desk, leapt straight up into the air and landed in a squat with a dangling robot arm.
My boss asked, “What are you — ”
But I cut him off with a head shake and a 2-spin-and-drop that sent me to the floor like a legit B-boy with hardcore street cred.
Music started pounding and smoke came up from the ground as I blew the roof off with my floor moves, scissoring and back-spinning before striking that final It’s-Britney-B*tch pose.
I went back to my invoicing after that, but I was alive, pulsing with the swagger that had been hand-delivered to me by those magical pants.
And hours later, as I found myself on the receiving end of a judgmental gawk from a woman who clearly didn’t understand how difficult shopping with toddlers can be, the pants came to the rescue once again.
We were in the produce section, and The Lady skewered me with her eyeballs. I started to mutter an apology for my child’s apple-mountain-avalanche culpability when I happened to glance down. I saw those savage pants looking back at me like — You’re not seriously going to apologize to that shrew, are you? — and I knew what I had to do.
I couldn’t let the pants down.
With a shove, I sent my cart careening toward the deli attendant; he would surely keep my kiddo safe while I took care of business.
Before The Lady could even process what was happening, I did a hands-free cartwheel and landed in a fighting stance.
She immediately backed up. “I’m sorry but — ”
“That’s right; you are sorry.” I picked up the sword that had suddenly appeared on top of the Roma tomatoes and twirled that slicey piece of weaponry around like I was some kind of awesomely-pantsed ninja ballerina. “The question is what I should do about it.”
I took a few steps and did a jumping spin-kick, just so The Lady knew the kind of punishment I was capable of. I caught a glimpse of how dope the elasticized bottoms of the pants looked with my black booties as I thrusted my leg forward. Fricking nice. Then I slashed through a watermelon with my sword and said, “Get the hell outta here, Lady.”
She scurried away and I finished my grocery shopping, feeling like a damned conqueror as I strutted through SuperTarget in those glorious pants. All eyes were on my bottoms and I knew it. I loved it. I walked in slow motion with the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage pumping — my theme music — while I met each passing glance with a chin-nod, my way of saying “Hell, yes, I’m wearing motherloving parachute pants, thank you very much.”
Sadly, the time has come for me to take off the dream pants. The day is done, and the pant-removal hour is upon me.
I just have one question as I put them on a hanger and sweetly bid them goodnight. How many days do I have to wait before I can wear those bad boys again? 1? 3? 7? 21?
Any number is too high, because life is just better when you’re wearing parachute pants.
*Kind of, but mostly not really at all
