Ah, those little annoyances.

[beatrice_otter]

• Even the weekend before Thanksgiving, there are still tourists in Gettysburg.  You know how I know this?  Because the idiots can't figure out how to drive in a traffic circle.  It's really very simple.  If there's a car coming across the circle, wait your turn.  If there's a break, go.  Don't get half-way out into the circle, then realize there's a car coming, and stop.  If everyone drives responsibly, it's a safe and efficient way of handling an intersection.  If they don't it's a mess.  It was a mess today.
• The Christmas tree was up in the town square already.  And see point #1, it's not even Thanksgiving, yet.
• I hate, hate, hate shopping for any kind of pants, but particularly jeans.  It always ends with me trying on a bazillion pairs to find one that fits.  Apparently, I have a small waist for my size (or I have a big butt for my  waist size, but I much prefer the small waist, you know?).  So if I find a pair of pants (particularly jeans) that are big enough to get over my hips and butt, there's usually a huge gap in the small of my back.  And my torso is long enough that low-rider jeans are too low, so I can't solve the problem that way.  When you've tried on every single pair of jeans in your size in a department store and none of them fit, that's frustrating.  I ended up having to go to the Spawn of Satan (aka Walmart).  But at least I found not one but three pairs of jeans that would work.  Which was good, because I was down to one pair fit to be seen in public.  And the winners are: Signature by Levi Strauss and Co. Totally Slimming at Waist, Riders by Lee Comfort no-gap Waistband and Riders by Lee Slender Stretch Mid-rise boot cut.

On the bright side, only in Gettysburg would you see two ladies in Civil War clothes in the womens' changing rooms at Walmart.  And I now have jeans!

Comments

[jedibuttercup]

I have a similar problem with jeans now-- my hips are wider than is standard for someone of my new waist size-- but the opposite problem; I can't shop at Walmart for pants of any kind, any more, even Lee Rider's, which used to be my mainstay. My size scrapes the bottom of their selection and it tends to come in "Petite", not "Long" in my new size, which results in the condition my mother likes to call "waiting for the flood". I ended up trying a lot of department stores and ending up with DKNY jeans from Macy's, which were fortunately on sale, because otherwise they'd be a bit out of my comfortable price range. Stylish, though.

[thothmes]

I thank you for the list of pants to avoid. I have the opposite problem. Even when I am at my most slender, pants built for females tend to have too small waists, but pants built for guys tend to wear through in the thighs too fast. When I was in middle school and finally allowed to wear pants to school, my mom (she of the structurally broad hips and almost no waist, you'd be able to trade war stories with her) took me everywhere looking for jeans, and finally she told me that they just didn't make them to fit me. Tomboy that I was, I was crushed. Then a friend introduced me to Levis built for boys. To this day my favorite pair of pants is a hand-me-up I got from my son when he grew out of it. But stretch denim has made it possible for me to buy some ladies pants for those occasions when I really don't want to look like the tomboy I was.

[beatrice_otter]

I don't really care what my jeans look like, they just have to fit and not gap enough to show my underwear. So having to spend hours looking for pants that fit and don't gap is extremely frustrating. I have a friend who points out that things can be tailored, and I'm a seamstress so I should be able to do that, so why worry. But I hate tailoring, you know? It's fiddly work that takes forever.

[thothmes]

I sew, but it is definitely a labor of love, and anyone who has ever received an object I have sewn has truly received a gift from the heart, because I hate to sew with a passion, although I like having sewn.

So, I definitely, definitely, definitely hear you when it comes to reluctance to tailor, which is always very full of the most annoying and fiddly bits, and if done wrong can result in disaster and waste [in contrast to waist, which is the desired result!].

[beatrice_otter]

Amen!