By Lisa Scottoline
I have great news.
Elastic waistbands have gone public!
Let me explain:
The holidays are upon us, which means I have to go to the mall.
Which is outside.
By that I mean, I work at home, so I’m in sweats and fleece 24/7.
My daughter calls it my teddybear clothes.
Because she loves me.
But really, I’m a slob.
And working from home has only encouraged my slobbiness.
I have an entire wardrobe of sweatpants.
I even have dress sweatpants, in cashmere.
They look like 1,000,000 bucks, which is about what they cost.
Worth every penny.
Anyway, since I live in sweatpants, I look at jeans as the enemy.
Because they have a waistband.
And a button.
And a zipper.
Jeans are like a denim chastity belt.
Even though believe me, I’m chaste.
Only Mother Teresa is more chaste than I am.
And she’s dead.
I’m only dead below the waist.
But I digress.
Because jeans feel so confining, I’ve dreaded wearing them, which is a problem for going out.
Meanwhile, let’s pause for a moment and think back to the time when women had a pair of nice pants, usually wool and in navy or black.
Mother Mary called them slacks, but you get the idea.
There was no slack in slacks.
They had a real waistband, usually with the button and a zipper, and they had a crease down the middle. I have them at the back of my closet, but I can’t remember the last time I put them on.
Maybe people still wear them, but I don’t.
Remember I warned you about the slobbiness.
If I have to dress up for a signing, I wear black stretch pants with a nice jacket on top. No one knows my waistband is elastic.
Until now.
What’s funny is in the old days, I wore jeans all the time and dreaded putting on a pair of pants.
Now I wear sweats all the time and dread putting on a pair of jeans.
In other words, I’m devolving.
Unfortunately my waistline is evolving.
To return to point, I had to go shopping for presents, so I stuffed myself into jeans and left the house.
I was walking around the mall for five minutes when I realized that no one around me was wearing jeans.
What?
Every single person was wearing sweatpants or a tracksuit or some kind of teddybear clothes.
Drawstrings abounded, swinging back and forth.
Yes, I stared at people’s crotches.
Men and women, but mostly men.
Bottom line I was the only throwback in jeans.
What?
Since when?
This is great news!
I could’ve been a teddybear, no problem.
Meanwhile I had a vise around my waist, like a do-it-yourself hysterectomy.
The only people not wearing some form of sweatpants were women who had gone in the complete opposite direction, wearing yoga pants showing a midriff.
In December.
Now listen, if I had a waist like these women, I’d probably show it off too.
I spotted abs for miles.
But still, even my chubby tummy was cold.
By the way, no one was wearing shoes either.
Everyone was wearing sneakers.
I looked like something out of the 1950s, with my jeans and loafers.
So bottom line, I bring tidings of great joy.
‘Tis the season for sweatpants in public.
Truly Happy Holidays!
Copyright © 2025 Lisa Scottoline