The new and improved me – Part 2

Saturday I went shopping for work pants – first time clothes shopping since I can’t remember when.

First, a little background.

I've lost a ton of weight in the last few months.

Right before Christmas vacation, Jennifer, a sweet co-worker, made an off-hand remark in a way that told me it was anything but off-hand about my baggy pants.

So when I got home I grabbed my wife’s makeup mirror and checked out how I looked from behind and was shocked by what I saw. I looked like I was wearing clown pants. It was ridiculous. No way could I wait until I stopped losing weight to buy new pants.

So I told my kids that they could go ahead and get me a new belt (I had added six notches to my old belt) and shirts for Christmas and I was going to buy new pants while on vacation.

Well, right before Christmas I had a minor car accident. No one was really hurt but it was unnerving. For a while I didn’t want to drive even though my car was operable. I didn’t even finish my Christmas shopping or visit my brother and sister for Christmas because they didn’t live nearby.

I just kept imagining pieces of my car falling off on the freeway and thinking about how narrow car lanes are in Phoenix and how when driving home after the accident I had felt the cars on either side of me moving in on me.

I'm much better now but it's still kind of bothering me.

So I didn’t drive the rest of my vacation unless I absolutely had to. The first trip after the accident was to a car dealership for a repair estimate and I was nervous driving the entire way.

So the morning back to work, I grabbed for my work pants and realized I hadn't bought those new pants.

Now back to Saturday…

Of course, I was excited at the prospect of finding out what my new waist size was.

I am not too proud to admit I went to Targets. I hate shopping and Targets are everywhere and relatively cheap so that’s where I headed.

When I got to the Men’s Department, I asked the sales lady for a tape measure. I measured 46 inches around. Wow, was that disappointing. That was only about a two inch improvement over my old waist size.

But then I tried on a size 46 pants in the fitting room and the pants practically fell off. I realized I had measured girth instead of waist size. Did I mention I don’t know much about clothes. So I then tried on a size 40, 42 and 44 pants. All too big for me. And then I tried a size 38 and it was just right.

I had gone down 10 pants sizes. Wow!

And for the first time I can remember I enjoyed shopping for clothes. If I keep losing weight, I might actually start looking forward to it.

Regards,
Philip