Unpleated

It all came out over dinner. My wife made her famous stew, which she had plated and placed before me on the table. On a normal night, I would have plunged my fork into one of the roasted potatoes, silently attacking my food, the only sound a symphony of silverware dancing across our plates.

But this night was different.

On this night, something else consumed me. So, as Michelle set my plate down and made her way to her seat across the table, right after she sat and adjusted her chair, I spoke.

“I want to go shopping,” I said.

My wife, her mouth already full of chuck roast said, “Mmmwhy?”

“I need some things.”

She finished chewing and swallowed. “Honey, we just spent a fortune remodeling the house, spending a small fortune on your room, your quiet room as you call it, although it's never quiet, not after getting you that giant Plasma screen television, the one you just had to have, to go along with the stereo you needed so that you could get optimal sound quality from the Blue Ray DVD player. And all those movies you got that day. And then there are the baseball games on Saturday and that Sunday NFL ticket throughout the fall and—”

“Ok. Enough already,” I said, cutting her off. “I meant shopping for clothes.”

My wife raised an eyebrow and smiled. “For me,” I finished.

“Clothes? Why? You have plenty of clothes,” she said, setting her fork and knife down with emphasis.

“Not that I like.”

“Since when? You wear the same things over and over and you hate shopping. I've bought all your clothes for years.”

“Exactly,” I said.

She pushed back, the chair sliding out from beneath the table, the chair leg screeching in agony across the floor.

“Oh,” she said slowly, as she stood abruptly, gave me the look—think disdainfully pouty—and stormed off to the kitchen.

It began simply enough with an observation. You see, there's this guy I worked with, a British guy, and he's really cool and all the young women around the office thought he was the man.

He was young, single, fit to the point of being skinny almost, with a cocky swagger, good teeth and hair right out of a magazine. And he wore those t-shirts without anything written on them, you know the kind, the ribbed ones that cost as much for one as most guys would pay for a 12 pack of White Beefy-T's.

And you should see him. Every little thing he said was taken as some sort of revelation, as girls in the office swooned over him and I'm sitting there, alone in my office, watching everyone dash right on by with barely a nod my way. So I couldn't help but start to wonder: What did he have that I didn't? What was it that the girls all loved so much? It's not that I was interested in them. I wasn't. I was a happily married man. But just once in a while it would have been nice to be where he was, with all the girls standing around my door, batting their eyes and telling me I was cool and funny. You know?

So here was my conclusion: all things being equal—because I, too, was funny and smart and clever—the biggest part of his success could be directly tied to his clothes. I called it his cool guy uniform. And if we wanted to get into specifics, the one real differentiator were his pants. Where as I went around in my pleated Haggar wrinkle-free washables, he gallivanted around here unpleated, uncuffed, and unconcerned. He was brash and care-free and everyone knew it cause he had nothing to hide. He was unpleated.

Folks saw me, they saw an aging guy with pleats. What is he hiding? they would ask. What is behind that little crinkle of cloth? That puffy comfort zone of uncertainty? A little security blanket for his penis perhaps? Is he too small? Not manly enough? Is he taking viagra?

They didn't say it, but they might as well have. I was pleated and therefore, ashamed.

And this is what led me to that dinner-time revelation and my decision to shop. I, too, could be unpleated, born-again, revived, a fashion renaissance man.

And I would shop, with or without Michelle.


The mall. A world apart for me. A place I'd only seen on sitcoms. Oh, what excess, what hedonism. Women, some men, too many kids to count, bustled about with little handled bags that looked like paper briefcases, over-stuffed and swinging pendulous as they wandered from shop to shop, bargains galore, looking for the look that would set them apart, give them the edge, get them the guy, the job, the confidence to take on the world.

Me, I just wanted chinos without pleats and I was lost.

“So where do we begin?” Michelle asked.

“I need pants.”

“You have pants. I was thinking shirts. Maybe a few new ties. Pants are pants.”

“Pants are not pants,” I said, through gritted teeth, my voice elevated.

Michelle stopped dead, she glared at me with a look I can only describe as Oh no you didn't. I stopped too and cowered over to her, sensing the pending emotional stand-off.

“Sorry,” I said. I diverted my eyes and scratched her lower back.

“So you want pants?” She said.

“Yes.”

“Yours are old?”

“Mine are pleated. I want to go unpleated.”

“Unpleated. I see,” she said as she paced off, spun, whirled and walked back to me. “My God. I never saw it coming, but yeah, of course. You poor baby. Is it that time?” We began to walk again.

“What time? What are you talking about?” Again, she stopped. “Oh, honey. Unpleated? Uncuffed, too, I bet.”

“Yyyyyyeah,” I said, hesitantly.

“God. You're early.”

“What? What early?” I asked. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“You're early on-set midlife crises. Wow. At 33. Pooooooor baby. I had no idea. God, that explains a lot.”

“Wwwwa-wa-wait. Midlife crises. No way! I just want pants. Fucking unpleated pants,” I explained.

“At thirty-three years of age you all of a sudden want flat-front chinos without cuffs? A year ago, I'd have gotten you that and you would have laughed at me. Made me take them back and—”

“I know. But work with me. Can't we just shop? The middle of the Food Court at the mall is not the place for a sermon on the chronology of a man's fashion sensibilities.”

“Ok. Ok. I'm just surprised, that's all. Let's get you some pants.”

So, as we walked along, I was astonished. There was literally a store for everything here, even lotion. What the hell? Can you imagine a man's store devoted only to shaving cream? What would that be about?

Then suddenly, my wife stopped and turned again. Her eyes wide and her mouth drawn thin, her face flush. “Is there another woman?”

“Another woman? God, I want pleats and you think there's another woman. Geeeeeeeze, Michelle. This is pants we're talking about.”

“Yeah, unpleated pants,” she said, her words heavy with suspicion.

“What?”

“You're having an affair!” She screamed.

“No, I'm not. Where is that coming from?”

“Coming from? It's coming from guys who never even set foot in a mall. Who let their wife do all their shopping for them, picking out all their little outfits so they'll look good at work, so they'll look good to all their co-workers and someone else, probably some secretary, has her eyes on you,” she said, emphasis on you as she pointed her finger square into my sternum. “And then late one night, it's the end of the fiscal quarter and you're there late and she's there and she just ordered Chinese food and you're talking and she likes the same movies that you do and you both like the color green and that damn Elton John song from El Dorado. And with her chop stick she feeds you a Lo-Mein noodle and you smile. She crinkles her nose and smiles a naughty smile that's not really a smile, but young single girl code for I want to fuck your mid-life crises having brains out, making you want to wear unpleated pants, so that from now on when she sees you there at work she'll know that she has rocked your world!”

There was momentary silence between us. She was staring into my eyes. I looked down and then up and met her gaze.

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life!” I said. “You just took scenes from at least two movies that I know we've watched on HBO in the past month and combined them into one very paranoid delusion.”

“I did not!”

“You did. And you strung them together into this insane world that has no basis in reality whatsoever in order to vent and clear your insecure conscience.”

She looked away, I'm certain to frame the puppy-dog face that I can never resist giving into. I hate that face. She looked back. Sure enough.

“Baby, I love you,” I said. “I am your husband. And your husband wants some new pants. That's all. Is it that difficult to understand?”

“No,” she said. But barely. What she really did was kind of pout it at me. And I could see where this whole thing was heading. She wanted to shop, too. Oh, this makes perfect sense now. I was set up and swindled, by my wife.

She gets mad. Throws out the whole is there another woman thing and mid-life crises early on-set or whatever it is, and knowing full well I am out of my element at the mall she thought she could get some self-shopping done.

Hell no. I was there for pants. And come to think of it, maybe one of those designer t-shirts. And if she pushed me too far, by God, as sure as I was standing there that shirt would be ribbed!


It's called “The Gap.” Michelle tells me this is unpleated paradise. I noticed I was the oldest person there and this unsettled me. I felt like they were all looking at me. All kids, nameless, faceless. All I could see were bright colors, baggy pants, long, untucked shirts with flowing patterns of colors and zits. Always zits. Tons of them.

For an absurd moment I pretended to be in a Stridex commercial or on one of those Saturday morning kid's shows. I'd be the gym teacher that all the kids thought was cool because he shopped at The Gap, was unpleated, and wore expensive ribbed t-shirts in assorted colors, none of which were the sports gray I had so fondly clung to in my past life.

“Max, over here,” I heard Michelle say.

I walked toward the back and saw, on the wall before me, rows and stacks of pants. Some pleated, but most had flat fronts, were uncuffed and all for me. I heard a small voice behind me.

“What?” I said, as I turned to see a girl, all of 16, with big eyes, big hair and a smell that reminded me of the lotion store we passed earlier.

“Can I help you find a size?” she asked.

“Uhhhhh...” I looked at Michelle.

“He needs a 38/30,” Michelle told her.

The girls eyes got bigger, which alarmed me because they were already huge. I could see deep into her pupils, the little gleam in her eye was laughing.

“What?” I said to her.

“Nothing,” she said. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, her perfumed hair blinded me as she tossed it before dashing off.

“Nothing? 38's not a lot!” I screamed. “All you kids wear that size now-a- days with your big baggy pants.” Michelle was glaring at me.

“What?” I said.

“Calm down, Max. 38's not bad. Especially for 33. So relax. We'll get you your pants, in your size and everything will be great. Ok?”

“Ok.”

While we were waiting, I looked about. I spotted a pile of ribbed t-shirts and slowly slipped toward them as Michelle was distracted by a sale. The shirts were in an array of colors, a cornucopia of shades, mostly pastels, bright and beautiful.             

What was happening to me? If my guy friends saw me, I'd never bowl again, never play in a softball league in this town again and no gym in the tri-county area would have me aside from the frou-frou ones downtown. I'd be a disgrace.

“Oh, Max, no.” Michelle shrieked as she caught me, a sky-blue ribbed crew neck in my hands. “You are having an affair,” she said, indignant. “And I'm not so sure it's with a woman.”

“No! Really,” I said. “I just. Just.”

“Just what, Max? Just what? Light blue? You make a sour face when I wear light blue. And now here you are—”

“I found some 38/30's, sir,” the girl said, saving me.

“Ahhh, great! Unpleated? Uncuffed?” I asked, eagerly.

“Ah, yeah. Pleats are so five minutes ago.”

“Exactly,” I said as I turned to my wife. “Exxx-actly.”