The Humble Story of a Pantsuit

Before I begin let's set a few things straight - this pantsuit has been through some hard times!   It has suffered tears, loose threads and even some unidentifiable stains, but somehow it has managed to survive.  This pantsuit has never had charm or appealed to the "princess element" in society.  This pantsuit doesn't have a Holly Golightly's little black dress beginning, middle, or end.  What it does have is spandex spunk, two itty bitty western styled pockets embroidered on the front, and one rather long fringy belt with dreams of its own.

The pantsuit began its life in Paloma, Spain in a small sweatshop that smelled of mothballs and discount wine located behind a cedar door with a sign that read "No Trespassing" in Spanish.  It was designed for a secondary mistress of a mediocre matador, both known for their bad taste and temperaments that suffered fools easily.

Unfortunately, before the outfit's completion, the mediocre matador met with the wrong end of a bull's horns and thus, because of cost, some changes were made to the original design.  Instead of fine linen for the construction of the outfit, bulk polyester from Jersey City, New Jersey was substituted. 

Since the secondary mistress felt it necessary to keep her affair with the mediocre matador secret from his wife and his official mistress, she had two tiny pockets sewn on front in order to try and discreetly hide her stash of Kleenex at the funeral – for if she wailed too loudly suspicions would be aroused. 

True to form, her plan didn't work and her affair was brought to light after she discovered that the pockets were too small to comfortably contain carefully folded tissues.  In a moment of high grief she reached for said tissues only to have them explode from the pressure they endured in their Emanuel size pant pockets – the tissue remnants covered the funeral party like confetti on New Year's Eve. 

The pantsuit soon found itself relocated to a give away bin headed for former communist countries such as Yugoslavia, Romania, and even Turkistan.  In each of these countries it acquired a new story.  In Yugoslavia it danced the night away to a daunting disco beat with men of assorted hairiness as it hugged the hips of a woman thirty pounds overweight.  She was stepping out on her husband of twenty years with whom she could no longer stand. 

In Romania, it witnessed the sunset and sunrise of the Carpathian mountain range from the vantage point of being balled up at the base of a plywood bed as it was sniffed by a disgruntled cat. 

In Turkistan, it met up with a spicy fringy belt that was originally from Ontario.  It was there that the two of them combined forces and successfully worked together to help free a young girl from the ever-evil sex trade.  She managed to use the belt as a rope and climbed out of a small window in a room that had a door, which was locked from the outside in.  It was only because of the super stretchiness of the bulk Jersey City polyester that allowed her to contort her body to the thinness of a supermodel on a bathing suit shoot that she managed to escape.

From there the pantsuit has some vague memory of bad Chicken Chow Mien in Hong Kong.  It knows that there were brief stays in Thailand and the Philippines, but these memories seem to be psychologically blocked.  It was only after it re-emerged in L.A. that it feels its wearable life was given a second chance. 

In this city of fame and glitter, it was adopted by a transgendered man who lip-synced Nancy Sinatra songs three times a week for tips that went towards the "operation."  Later this same person took it to Vegas where he debuted not only his new breasts implants, but also his own singing voice to a rather forgettable version of "Kentucky Rain."  The audience response was less than enthusiastic and the pantsuit found itself abandoned at a Hotel 8 – the stains of cried off mascara blotted on the right sleeve.

Fortunately, for the pantsuit, a runaway teenage girl and her forty-year-old boyfriend got into a huge fight in the room next door.  Voices were raised, names were called, glass shattered, doors slammed, and a lock was picked.  The pantsuit was the runaway's lucky omen and she wore it proudly as she hitchhiked from Nevada to Missouri.  It was in a medium sized town tittering on the Missouri River that the pantsuit started its third incarnation.

Once again, the pantsuit found itself abandoned.  There it was hanging from a rusty wire hanger at a Salvation Army sandwiched between old lady frocks and wedding dresses from marriages that just didn't work.  It's only friend was the fringy belt that still harbored Hollywood fantasies.  The pantsuit had been traded for a pair of acid washed jeans and an "I'm with Stupid" T-shirt splattered with blood.  This was a low point indeed for our humble heroic inflammable ensemble.  It couldn't help but wonder, "Will anyone ever love me for me?"

I won't burden you with the rest of the story – for I know you know it already.  Suffice to say that there is more than one moral here.  Yes, sometimes you must travel the world to find the one who loves you.  And yes, when you find the one who does love you it makes little difference if you are not a perfect fit or if you tend to make them look like Peggy Bundy.  What matters is that they have the shoes to match the color of your polyester.