Tuesday, April 04, 2006

It's a miracle!

Dear reader, in my hungover-induced melancholy yesterday, I overlooked a significant event at the weekend: I managed to buy a pair of trousers in the Netherlands. And they fit!

You might be wondering why this is such a momentous occasion, so let me enlighten you. Trousers here come in three leg lengths: long, very long, and "What the hell are they feeding their children?" For someone of my vertically challenged stature, this makes buying trousers a near impossibility. In fact, I haven't bought a single pair of trousers in Amsterdam in the past five years; instead, I've had to make costly excursions to the UK, US, or even on one occasion, Germany to get trousers that don't pool around my ankles while simultaneously straining across my thighs and gaping at the waist. I rarely even bother to try trousers on anymore -- the result of being told by a sniffily dismissive shop assistant, shortly after I arrived, that "We don't do anything shorter than a 32 inch inside leg." However, this all changed on Saturday. I dropped into a local store thinking of trying on a dress for Clive's wedding, and picked up a pair of cropped trousers in a moment of wild abandon. While the dress made me look as if I were 10 months pregnant, the trousers were a perfect fit! They hit just below the knee, were not embarrassingly low in the waist -- no thong reveals for me! -- and fit beautifully over the hips and thighs. Success! I slapped down my PIN card as quickly as I could (after queuing for the obligatory 10 minutes while several scarily large women pushed in front) and danced off to Super de Boer to do my Saturday food shop.

Please don't tell me that cropped trousers are no longer fashionable; I simply don't care. I have them, they fit, and the fact that they were probably meant to be bermuda shorts for giraffes is neither here nor there.

No comments: