Dear Devious Denim Garment,

With all due respect, I realize that you are, by virtue of age alone, vintage wear.  I remember your kind from the trailer park circa 1981 when Aggie’s boyfriend Garth wore a pair just like you with his  long striped tube socks and Vans checkered shoes. Not a pretty sight as he made out with Aggie on the hood of his black and lime green Trans Am.

Your lifelong owner was likely a teenage boy back when he first bought you as full length pants.  Time tore holes in the knees, but sweet memory and practicality turned you into  cutoffs so short that the front pocket linings sometimes appear at your tattered hem line.  Ah, Short-Shorts, once you were less short, but your owner’s increasing girth as he approached and surpassed the age of forty has strained and shortened you all the more.

Perhaps he kept you hidden in those early years of marriage, and brought you out after the divorce when he bought the Kawasaki motorcycle without a muffler.  Surely, he wore you when he made a border run to Wyoming for that fireworks arsenal he sets off all year long.  Sadly, he wears you to wash his car, mow his lawn, tinker with that loud motorcycle, and lounge about drinking Buds.  As his beer belly tans, there you are like a denim loin cloth concealing what little is left to the imagination.

Short-Shorts, must I wait for October and the cold air of autumn to drive you back to his closet?  Until then, I risk spit takes at the kitchen window while your master mows his lawn.  I must block my periphery when pulling in the driveway should he be bent over his motor bike.

I beg of you, Short-Shorts, give up, give in.  I know you come from the days when Levis were made in America, and your quality is unquestionable. But please, I beseech you,  break your zipper, endure a catastrophic tear that brings him to the brink of modesty.  Short-Shorts, it is time for your midlife master to take his mullet in hand, go forth to Super Cuts, and  buy some Dockers.  Then, and only then Short Shorts, will the cul-de-sac find summertime peace.

If you will not relent, I must threaten to go to the juniors section to buy a pair of size 9 Daisy Dukes,  (keep in mind I’m a size 12).  Maybe then, Short-Shorts, when my bright white cellulite catches the light of the pavement, and my muffin top shimmers with sweat, will the truth be known and fashion sense questioned.  I ask you to spare us all that great pain and concede to the Gods of Good Taste, lest I be forced to flaunt what I ought not.

Most kindly,

Your saftig neighbor in the blue house,