A clear-eyed inventory of the closet has revealed that I have only two pairs of pants, two skirts, and three shirts suitable for wearing to work. Apart from the fact that all my pants are slightly too short, they each would be fine except for one fatal flaw.

  • My ecru pants have flaps on the back pockets that don’t lay flat. I walk around looking like my hips are sprouting wings.
  • My black pants have a cheap zipper that won’t stay up. The cotton briefs underneath are probably not that interesting to anyone, but still.
  • My light brown pants have faint lines around the cuffs from when I took down the hems. I try wearing them tucked into boots but that’s a little too equestrian for someone who’s never even been on a horse.
  • My dark brown pants are missing a few belt loops.
  • My green pants I bought a size too big in the hopes that they’d be long enough after a run through the dryer. Now they are too short, but too big in the waist; a tent forms when I sit down.

I wish it were okay to go around in slighty worn or stained or frayed clothing. It is such a waste to get rid of a perfectly good pair of trousers because of missing belt loops. There’s no way I’m getting rid of my Nantuckett Red sailor pants with the foot-wide cuffs, which I got for 15 bucks off of J. Crew three years ago. The only way that will happen is if I am in the hospital or something and the doctors have to cut them off. I really hope that doesn’t happen, for my sake as well as the pants’.