Dot often wears extremely bright, verging on neon colored, denim jeans that she mixes and matches her flowery shirts with.  She takes extra special care to hand wash these pants and hang them up to dry in the doorway of her bedroom.

A couple of weeks ago, I could hear Joe rummaging around downstairs in the middle of the night.  I looked at the clock and it said 1:15am and I had an “uh-oh” kind of premonition.  I got out of bed and turned the lights on so that I wouldn’t take a tumble.  When I was about halfway down the stairs, I saw this bright flash of yellow out of the corner of my eye.  I called out, “Joe?  Is that you…?”

Joe:  “I can’t get these damned pants to button!”

I rushed down the stairs quickly so that I could see what in the world he was talking about.  If only I could’ve taken a picture at that moment, so that you could see what was standing in front of me.

There was Joe, standing there in his white undershirt, work boots, and hat…and if that wasn’t strange enough, he had also somehow managed to cram his lower body into a pair of Dot’s bright yellow jeans!

They were skin tight and he looked like he was going to suffocate when he sucked in his belly to try to button them.  As I stood there mesmerized by the scene, he actually hopped not once, but twice, in order to get them buttoned and zipped successfully.  When he finally let himself breathe again, his belly puffed out to full capacity and pooched out like a basketball over his toothpick legs that were stuffed into neon yellow skinny jeans.  I couldn’t even help myself from laughing.

Me:  “Joe!  What in the world are you doing wearing a pair of Dot’s pants?”

Joe looked down at his neon yellow ensemble and then looked back up at me with a big grin:  “Are these Dot’s pants?”

Me:  “Yes, they’re definitely Dot’s pants!”

Joe:  “Well no wonder they’re so goddamned tight!”

Me:  “Yeah, no wonder!”

Joe cracked himself up and we laughed together for a bit.  Dot woke up momentarily and asked us what was so funny.

Me:  “Just take a look at Joe’s outfit, Dot.”

Dot peeked her eyes open just enough to look at Joe for a second and said, “Hey, those are MY pants!”

Joe giggled:  “Yeah, and you know what?  You can’t tell me that I can’t have ice cream anymore, Dot…”

Dot:  “Why is that?”

Joe put his hands on his waist, which only served to emphasize he protruding belly as he proudly announced, “If I can fit my ass into YOUR pants, then YOU’RE the one who shouldn’t be eating so much ice cream!”

Dot just rolled over and went back to sleep.

Joe:  “Well I told her, didn’t I…?”

I smiled at him:  “Yep, you sure did, now how about I help you get out of those uncomfortable jeans so that you can get some sleep huh?”

Joe looked at me and chuckled:  “Well you can go back to bed if you want, but I’m on my way to work!”

Realizing that this was quickly turning into a long night, I tried to reason with him:  “But Joe, you can’t go to work in Dot’s pants…”

Joe looked down at his legs again:  “Well why the hell not?  I’ll be a lot safer in these britches because they’re bright enough to stop traffic!”

He had a good point there…