in lieu of a belt.

Have you ever had one of those days? You know, the days where you forget to wear socks with your shoes.  Or the day you put your underwear on, inside-out.  How about one of those days when you think you've already washed your hair so you get out of the shower but then realize that you didn't, in fact, wash your hair.  I have a lot of those days it seems.  Since having my baby, my memory feels even more forgetful.  I think that might be one of those impossible scenarios...a forgetful memory.  Anyway, despite having days where I unintentionally forget things, or accidentally drive the wrong way (even though I know where I am going), a few weeks ago I had a day where I did something on purpose even though I should try to claim it was just a memory lapse.

Luckily, I have lost all of my pregnancy weight.  However, shortly after giving birth, I realized that I could no longer fit into my maternity clothes but all my pre-baby clothes still were a bit snug.  That, combined with a slight bout of self-consciousness, is a recipe for an expensive shopping trip.  I somehow managed to purchase only a few new clothing items, knowing (and hoping and praying and wishing) that my body would soon shrink back to its normal giantness.  One of the things I bought was a pair of teal slim fit pants.  Despite the fact that my description includes both the word "teal" and the word "slim", they were/are nice pants.  I like them a lot.  For a while, they even fit.  But then as more weight came off, they started to get a bit loose around the caboose.  So, because I liked the pants and wanted to wear the pants, I decided I would still wear the pants.  This type of pant, however, is best worn with a long tunic shirt.  If one wears a belt with said long tunic shirt, one looks fat.  So, on the particular day that I chose to wear the too-big pants, I opted to not wear a belt.  This was a bad decision on my part.

I got to work and as the hours passed, my pants became looser and looser.  Finally, I could not even stand up without having to hold my pants up.  As entertaining as I am sure my inadvertant strip-tease would have been for my coworkers, I needed to find a solution.  I tried to find a safety pin, but we didn't have any.  I tried to use one of those alligator clips to hold my trousers.  No luck.  I thought about stapling the pants up somehow, but then I remembered my third grade halloween costume (I was a bald eagle...yes, a bald eagle.  I actually wanted to be a bald eagle), my mom stapled bird feet out of construction paper to my shoes and by the end of the day, the staples were scratching the tops of my feet.   So I knew, from experience, that staples would be a bad idea.  Finally I decided to use packing tape to secure my pants to my body.  I did not, as you might imagine, actually tape the pants to my skin.  Instead, I used the tape like a belt and made a tight tape loop around my waist. The "tape belt" as I will call it for ease of understanding, was great because it kept my pants up, with only minimal crackling noise, and eliminated the bulge that is caused by a belt buckle.  My tape belt was a great success.  Until I had to pee.  Then it sucked.