Flashes of Panic

If you asked about my size, I would tell you I’m “average,” but if you tried shopping for clothes that fit me, you’d decide that I’m scrawny. It seems that men’s pants come in two sizes: too big for me (around the waist) or too short for me. Clothes makers are of the opinion that anyone with legs as long as mine (which is to say, average) must be bigger around the waist than I am. I tend to wind up with pants that fit, but are short.

The solution: Steve, the captain of the Woburn High School track team, who works at Eddie Bauer and has the same problem, but worse, because he’s a hurdler and has a few inches on me in the legs. Steve saw me scowling at the racks and started pulling out pants that might fit me—going by leg length first, then getting the smallest waist in that length. This method actually produced enough trial pairs that I was able to pick ones that I liked rather than ones which merely fit.

Then he asked about my NYCM jacket and we talked track for a little while. Turns out that he was at the Hartford Invitational I watched a few years ago, though I think he ran hurdles and not the two-mile.

Runners: we take care of each other, we do.

Now Playing: Blackout from Dead Air by Heatmiser