And I’m shaped weird, with thighs bigger than my hips. Honestly, it doesn’t look that bad, and no guy has ever commented on my thighs being large or anything, so I’m still coming out ahead. I have the hip measurement of a supermodel, but otherwise the body of a person who eats regularly. If I was okay wearing skirts all the time, it wouldn’t matter, but t-shirt plus jeans is my life uniform.

I don’t know if my thighs have gotten bigger (a possibility; I haven’t been keeping track) or if it’s the fashion industry, but I have a hell of a time finding jeans that fit both my hips and my thighs. “Too tight” is the norm. If I can pull them up, there’s tons of room in the waist to let the rainwater in. If I find ones that fit my hips, I can’t get them up without acrobatic skills and a shoehorn.

The other day when I was doing laundry, I saw holes in the back of a pair of jeans, on the corners of the pockets. I didn’t realize it until now, but I wear jeans until they fall apart, and they always fall apart in the embarrassing areas, as I’ve mentioned before. I probably haven’t shopped for jeans in two years, but now was obviously the time, since it’s best to retire this pair before they give my workmates a show.

So I went around the mall. Kelowna has a pretty big mall, with most of the stores you’d find in the malls in Vancouver, so I was pretty confident I’d find something. I avoided all the juniors stores since young women have twigs for legs and skinny jeans are the status quo, but it still left a lot, and I went into all the stores I could find. And nothing. No luck, everything’s too tight, I’m losing feeling in my toes…

I ended up finding mom jeans at Reitman’s. Ugh. That was the only place in the entire mall that had wide-leg jeans, but of course the waist is up at my belly-button. But that’s not all I found: I tried on a bunch of other styles at that store, and got the shock of my shopping life when I tried on a pair of their “comfort jeans”: there’s no fly. No fly!!! They pull up like sweatpants, except they’re not, they’re jeans. It’s freaky. Please, God, please, let me never be forced to wear jeans like that; I need easy access to my genitals. You never know when I might need them, and can’t afford the extra milliseconds of yanking the pants down against the pull of the elastic waistband.

I’m not really sure why those jeans scared me so much, but when I put them on I felt like I was disowning my privates. There’s no door to the unknown, it’s just a wall. Nothing here, it suggests. Nothing you’d find interesting. It’d be like giving up. Besides, they were too tight.

I ended up finding some non-mom jeans that fit at Plum today, strangely enough, thanks to a sales clerk who was wayyyyy too loud and cheerful and blasting Abba in the store’s PA. But I was so happy, because I’d been feeling like the clothing manufacturers had all decided that I no longer qualify as a jeans wearer. I can’t wait until wide-leg or loose jeans come back into fashion, but it could be a while. Hopefully before I develop crotch holes in these ones.