Mom Jeans

My mother gave me "mom jeans" for Christmas. You know, those high waisted jeans that make me think of little old ladies with their pants pulled up to their armpits. Really Mom, you gave me "mom-jeans" as a Christmas gift? Is that really something you should give your 43 year old daughter in the middle of a mid-life crisis?

They were the right size and length, so I put them in my drawer to save for the day when I ran out of clean pants.

That day came a week ago Monday.

I'd been too busy to finish the laundry so when Monday morning arrived I discovered I had nothing to wear to work.

Nothing, except for a pair of clean, bright blue, mom jeans shoved in the back of my pants drawer.

I put them on.

And then I discovered that they fit perfectly.

More than fitting perfectly they covered my muffin-top so that my clingy shirt fit smoothly over my ever-expanding grad-school belly.

Oh.... so that's why women wear mom jeans.

All day long, my jeans felt secure. I wasn't hiking up my pants or unbuttoning the top button when I sat down for long periods of time.

Usually, I prefer hip-huggers because I hate the way regular pants cut into my stomach. Hip-huggers are also cool and hip and trendy, all those things I still think I am. But hip-huggers also have a terrible tendency to  cut into the fat around one's middle and squish it upwards into a perfectly formed, succulent muffin top.

But not so mom jeans.

Yesterday, I wanted to wear a stretchy knit top, but unfortunately this favorite shirt did little to hide my aforementioned grad school flab. And then I thought, "I wonder if the mom jeans will work?"

I slipped them on, zipped them all the way up past my belly button, then pulled on the lovely red top. My muffin top was reduced to a sweet, delicate mini-muffin, no longer one of those giant muffins that overflows the muffin tin.

So now I have to say, thanks Mom. I think. Thank you for introducing me to the joy and beauty of mom jeans. Or at least, thank you for giving me a pair of pants that will fit until I lose these 15 pounds of belly flab which is my graduation gift from sitting on my ass studying for the last 2.5 years.

Although I can't get that image of a granny with her boobs hanging down to her elastic waist band out of my brain.