Memory Lane - Baby Makes His Blue Jeans Talk

I understand skinny women. I understand skinny ties. (I was there in the eighties, remember?) I understand skinny wallets, too. (Boy, do I.) But I don't understand today's global fascination with ultra-skinny jeans.

I'm a bootcut kind of guy myself. Some would say I'm a black suit black short black tie black underwear and black socks kind of guy, but that's a misunderstanding. I'm a bootcut kind of guy. The black ensemble is just to scare some high school students off. (Works with other folks, too, come to think of it.) Now, I don't know where you live or whether this skinny fashion has spread to your part of town, too, but here, in the absolute northwestern part of good ol' Europe, the sky is not the limit—skinny jeans are. Whichever men's store, wearhouse or classy boutique I enter on a Monday morning when everyone else is working, I keep bumping into the same conveyer belt type snot-nosed ten-dollar-an-hour sales people, behaving like they own the store and it's holy ground I've decided to tread, who keep wanting me to parade around town wearing... you've guessed it: skinny jeans. Just the thought of it makes my voice go up like MJ, God rest his soul. Two octaves at least.

Anyone from Pluto would be tempted to believe these earthlings' skinny jeans were meant for skinny people. Or uptight individuals. That would make perfect sense to more advanced aliens, I'm sure. But the thing is... the majority of the folks on this here spinning little planet, the forth rock from the sun, don't necessarily make perfect sense. It's a given. The fact of the matter is skinny jeans aren't the exclusive domain of skinny people at all. I've seen it with my very own eyes. I've seen not-so-skinny people wearing them, too, and I wonder—does wearing those skinny little suckers give them a false sense of skinniness? Are skinny jeans an inescapable expression of our global need to feel skinny?

P.S. Not long ago people tried to sell me jeans with holes in them. 'These are very special holes, sir. You won't find be able to find the exact same holes anywhere else.' Special holes, alright. They cost about $200.

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