Recently, my wife and I were standing in line at a quick mart down the street. She always has to have a Diet Pepsi before we drive out of town. So there we were, standing behind several men, being patient because we are glad we live in a small city where the pace is generally a little bit slower than big cities. I have been volunteering with the local police department for several years. Nothing too dangerous, just patrolling without weapons or any authority of any kind, and directing traffic when there is a big event, like the annual Little League parade. I have decided to try to be a better observer. That means noticing important things about other people, like eye and hair color, clothing, height, and any special markings or tattoos. I realized quite awhile ago that I often wouldn't be able to give police a good answer regarding what my wife was wearing should she ever be kidnapped and held for ransom, or if she wandered off as a result of a sudden onset of dementia or an attack of shopaholicism. I then began a little mental inventory of my closest acquaintances and discovered I often could not be sure what color eyes they had. So, I've been practicing looking for those things. During that process, I have inadvertently become something of a critic of ladies' shoes. That really has nothing to do with the topic sentence of this paragraph. In fact, much of what you just read doesn't belong in this paragraph. I'd better start over.
There we were, standing in line, waiting to pay for our sodas, when I noticed something about the man at the counter. He was about 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighed about 250 pounds, short, blond hair, wearing blue trousers, white sneakers (That's an anachronistic term, but I'm not sure what to call them these days. He obviously wasn't a runner, so they couldn't be running shoes. He didn't fit the tennis player stereotype, so I hesitate to call them tennis shoes. Deck shoes, cross-trainers, basketball shoes. Nothing seemed to fit. It's a dilemma.), and a short-sleeved, tan shirt that was unquestionably too short for him. He was standing upright, not leaning over or bending over, but there it was; the unmistakable butt crack. I quietly asked my lifelong partner, "You think he's a plumber?" Her reaction was a mixture of grotesque offence and controlled, but obvious humor.
As we stood there, I began thinking about what was wrong. Suspenders, I decided. He needed suspenders (or braces, as folks in the UK call them [this is the education element]). I started thinking about people I knew or have seen who wear suspenders. They sometimes are part of a fashion statement for some women who don't actually need to worry about their pants falling down, having ample hips to inhibit such malfunctions. I knew a large man who wore them all the time because his hips were pretty much non-existent. His pants ended just below his belly, but there was no difference in the circumference of his body at the belt line and the circumference at the hip-hop, saggy pants "waist" line. I would normally describe this as just below his butt, but he didn't seem to actually have a butt. His suspenders were a necessity, not an accessory. Have you ever noticed that all the men whose trousers fall down while being videotaped (recorded?) for America's Funniest Home Videos have the same issue; no butt? Then I thought about a guy I had seen recently who wore suspenders and a belt. I remembered thinking that he must be a very cautious man, having a redundant system perchance one or the other should fail. Who was that guy? It was our turn to pay for our drinks. The man had left without my noticing his face. I tend to shut down some senses when I'm thinking about other stuff. That's pretty much all the time. Thus, my need to concentrate on what people look like.
As I held the door open for my other half, it hit me. The answer to the question about the man with the backup system on his pants, not the door. It was that guy that was just arrested for answering a Craig's List ad from an underage girl who turned out to be a police officer executing a sting operation. Maybe he didn't wear a both a belt and suspenders because he was overly cautious after all. Must have been a fashion statement.
