Pants, pants, did I say, we need pants? I’m starting to wonder if “Pants” is another substitute word, as my mom is quite particular and she’s been asking to purchase pants for awhile. By now, I’m starting to abhor pants shopping, and deeply reflective on my own experience with shopping for pants. For about a year or two, I’ve actually personally switched from wearing pants almost exclusively, to wearing skirts and dresses. The primary reason being that my own hips have acquired some fat or water weight or what have you, and I find pants shopping to be incredibly frustrating. I am often between sizes, so I just skip the whole thing, and look for shorter skirts for spring and summer, and longer skirts for fall and winter. Sometimes, I add tights or leggings.
This time, we tried the mall. After inspecting a few racks, we found a few that looked like they would be a good fit, and they were on a special sale. The universe was smiling on us this time.
The lady in the change room gave us a larger room, and there was a small seat in the room for my mom to sit down. Win-win, so far.
My mom has this habit of turning her back to the mirror when trying on pants. Her fingers are not as nimble as prior, so she is not only turned away, but usually in the opposite direction of the light as well. I encourage her to use the mirror as a cheat to help with where her hands should go. Too often, she puts her hands exactly on the clasp or the zipper, so there is no room for the object to move. It’s pretty frustrating, but I think she is worried about getting the placement wrong.
One pair was a pull-on style (which, by now, I’m starting to realize is quite a genius concept – Who doesn’t want to pull on their pants? and not have any kind of fasteners). As my mom has lost a lot of her physical strength, buttons are now a no-no, and zips can be a struggle if you need to give a tug, or try to line up the base with the hole of the zip. I’m pretty sure most of us take a lot of this for granted. Can you imagine back when you were 2 or 3 and needed help with your zipper? yes, unlikely. I sure can’t. Anyways, that’s what we’re dealing with here. Even velcro clings too tightly for a weak* person to pry apart.
Mom is unimpressed with the pull-on pants. They are perfect in my mind – no zips, no velcro, no buttons, no snaps (Oh horrors – snaps ! Snaps are too small to see clearly, and have to be lined up perfectly to connect – an ageing person’s nightmare!). The pants are black, relatively stylish (no busy textures going on), and have relatively large pockets (which my mom loves to have).
*although I say “weak”, I just mean a person with little strength in their hands. During this time period, my mom was unable to mover her fingers nimbly enough to use any kind of closure. I’m sure in her mind, she was pretty horrified, being unable to control her fingers as she wanted. I wrote this originally in 2017, and now, in 2019, she has enough strength and enough nimbleness to zip her zips and bend her buttons to go through buttonholes. I think her weakness was originally related to meds she was on, which my dad has since been able to convince the doctor to get her off of.