I came home this afternoon from running those errands that always seem to follow a holiday…take off the trash, grab fresh bread and milk, and check the mail. When I got home, I found a brand new pair of Levi jeans sitting on the dining table like a surprise guest. My wife had taken it upon herself to pick up a pair of Classic Bootcut 501s for me while she was out rummaging though the after Christmas sales.
See, I’m one of those men who has worn the same kind of jeans most of my life. There was my younger days when I had to have Huskies because I had discovered my appetite and earned a big growth spurt because of it. But from my teen years until now, 501s have been the the beginning and the end of the conversation.
When I was a boy, we made special trips into town to a little western store that smelled like fresh leather and saddle soap to get me jeans and Dad’s Durango boots. I always begged Dad for a ten‑gallon hat, and he always ignored me. We left only with boots and 501s every single time. It was tradition.
So I picked up the new jeans, admiring them, until something felt off. The waist looked suspiciously generous.
“These jeans are the wrong size, Jeanni.”
“Why don’t you try them on for laughs?”
“But they’ll fall right off me.”
“Of course they will.”
That was the moment things spiraled into a full‑scale debate about the circumference of my waist. To prove my point, I dug out a pair of 501s I hadn’t worn in several years…since I quit traveling full-time. I attempted to squeeze into them as a demonstration of how my size had not, in fact, changed. I forced the buttons together until my breathing was compromised and my Twinkie went numb.
“It sucks getting old,” I hollered.
“Oh cheer up, you’re not old, you’re fat.”
And that, friends, is marriage.
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