day nine...velour

This is a strange word to pick for the March prompt, but velour impacted my whole day today, and I felt compelled to share it.  Forgive me if this is too much for you velour lovers out there, but I have had a total change of heart for this word, and the fabric it represents.

This morning at 4:30AM, when I was getting ready to fly home to California, I vacillated between jeans and something warmer.  It was raining, had been all night, that kind of early spring rain that just seeps coldness into your bones.  And so jeans that I had laid out the night before (well actually at 1AM since I was up late packing, a norm for me) didn't look too appealing when I was getting ready.  So I ran to the bedroom and dug out a velour jacket and pants from my time in Alaska, perfect traveling attire for the Arctic.

Well, in my rush I forgot to put on underwear.  (And I am not talking about a bra...a middle aged woman would have to have a sadistic bent to subject the world to that sight.)  So half asleep I got my clothes on, thinking I had picked the perfect traveling ensemble.  Warm, but not too hot, and makeup put on what appeared to be perfect, and my hair kept flat and simple so I didn't have to worry about bedhead when I arrived, because I knew I would sleep my way across the US, as I always do.  Put me in an airplane seat, start taxiing for takeoff and I am unconscious within two minutes.

Today was no exception, I slept from Birmingham to Phoenix.  When I stood up to change planes, I had the first inkling that maybe I hadn't chosen wisely in apparel.  As I stood up, I suddenly realized the seam on the seat of my pants was buried.  In the butt that seam covered.  Somehow it had wedged itself as deep as a pair of thong underwear.  And I started sweating, wondering how I was going to unobtrusively dig that seam out without being obvious about it.  I sure didn't want to be the woman with the butt seam problem everyone talked about when they debarked.

So I tried to be sneaky.  I grabbed the side of the leg and gave a little tug on the butt of the pants.

Now the thing you need to know about velour, is that is stretches.  By the time I had the leg pulled out so far it looked like an elephant ear attached to my leg (yes the pantsuit was dark gray), I realized that errant seam wasn't going to be going anywhere.

I tried the other leg.  Nothing.  Just another elephant ear.  By now I realized I was going to be moving into the aisle soon, because the plane was quickly emptying.  So I did what I had to do.  I grabbed the butt of my pants and yanked.  But when I yanked, it pulled the butt seam sideways and it ended up over close to my right hip.  I knew there was no way I could walk out into the aisle looking like I was walking forward from the waist up, and sideways from the waist down, so I grabbed the waist of the pants and gave a big yank in the opposite direction, and finally got the seams where they all belonged.  I figured by that time at least some of the people behind me knew what had happened, but I kept my eyes straight forward and never looked back.

Now maybe it would be bad enough this happened once to me, but I had another couple hours to fly from Phoenix to Sacramento, and this horrid little scene repeated itself all over again, with a different group of observers.

I've never been so glad to finally get to my sister's car.  Where I could yank my pants around in any direction in the midst of loving family.

Of course, said loving family laughed outright at me.  And outrageously loudly.

Which is why I had two glasses of wine at dinner.

And why that vicious, butt eating velour pantsuit is now in the garbage can.