:: Pocket Change ::

Tuesday, September 10, 2002

The pockets of my homogeneous, innocuous, machine-crafted, flat-front chinos from Banana Republic are a goodly size. They are designed to hold several commonplace personal items contemporaneously, and include a small sub-pocket for loose change on the right side. Despite this generally sensible capacity, cumbersome and bulging are my pockets.

When I was a babe, I had no pockets. I did not, I believe, even possess pants of any kind. My mother kept me close by, and all the needs for external goods which invariably arose were competently fulfilled by her. Later, as I toddled about on shaky legs, I was clad in leg-dressings which made only the most meager attempts at doubling as storage devices. Later, as I began school, I found myself wanting of a place to keep my 0.5mm Bic mechanical pencil (you .7mm fans are fools), and later my Pilot Precise V5 black pen (you who favor the V7, be gone). Soon, the rough and small-hewn pouches could not cope with the wallet I was forced to carry, out of the necessity for constant proper identification and the transport of petty cash.

As I began taking the bus, I also began taking keys with me. By default, they wound up sandwiched between my wallet and pen/pencil. For a brief period in the 1980s, a scientific calculator nearly caused the rupture of my left hip-pouch as I toted it about my elementary school, though no one shall ever speak of this again, under penalty of torture. Exacerbating the dearth of space was my habit of being a pack-rat, with my waist-receptacles often doubling as waste-receptacles (my god... that was, without a doubt, the zenith of my punminship).

When I started to notice girls, I added gum. When I tried to forget them, I stuffed in books. When I began to strut about town, I crammed in a mobile phone. When I got a job, I somehow managed to squeeze in my access card. When my commute became too tedious, in went the iPod.

And sometimes, when the stress on the fabric is seemingly too much to bear, all I can think about is tearing the lining out of these pants, getting down on all fours, and letting someone else worry about opening the doors and paying for the meals. I really enojyed the freedom of movement.

And the thinly-veiled metaphors marched onward as the light decayed, their flesh burnt from the over-abundance of symbolism...

Posted by morland @ 01:10 AM

:: Comments ::

.7mm fools are we? Dare you call us fools for wanting to express our whims in broad, dark strokes? Gasp, I say!

My pockets breathed a sigh of relief when my Handspring Visor Deluxe perished. The resulting dearth of pocket stuffing was, however, quickly snuffed when my hip-mounted cellphone was replaced by a pocketable successor.

Continue with your florid prose! I enjoy dispensing it myself, but it works not so well when bitching about Susan Sontag.

Posted by: Scott Ganz on September 10, 2002 04:22 PM

cargos dude. it's all about the cargos. and no i'm not talking about $50 abercrombie "cargo khakis" or some shit, i'm talking cheap ass, military style cargo pants (and shorts!) which can more than triple your pocket space. invest in some new clothing and watch your "waist-receptacles" turn into roomy, arrid cubbies once again with the addition of outer thigh receptacles. plus every WILD i snuck in at least six beers. HOLLA! orland is the best.

Posted by: graham on September 12, 2002 02:37 PM

Just wanted to drop in here to express a little pencil lead extremism. 0.5mm is where it's at. Who are those 0.7mm guys anyway? Terrorists? And where are they now? Serving fizzy beverages to the 0.5mm-class, you say? Que viva 0.5mm.

Posted by: jexe on September 15, 2002 02:07 PM

well, morland. you win for now. the pockets...i agreee, i fear filling those more than i do the cup (which we shall come back to again). also the .7mm pen, up for debates of all sorts, but whose listening anyways, lets be real honest. however, back to the pockets, cargos, not the answer, because they will pose the same problem as the B.R. pants, continual overload. even worse so, more weight, more useless shit. you will only put in them, your chamois for hot days/dusting off "stuff", your DigiCam in case something arousing happens in your path (yes folks, orland is not a robot, for robots do not find own hand attractive). well, michaelo, i think the story boils down to, full pockets are not that great. you might as well leave them empty,....HMMM?

Posted by: mikey H on October 1, 2002 08:29 PM

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