I had, until recently, only two pairs of pants. This situation worked quite well while it lasted because one can only wear one pair of pants, comfortable, at a time. Both of these pairs of pants were APC jeans. One pair I idiotically had gotten tailored an inch too short the first week having them whilst the other pair has become essentially a glorified hole-worn threadbare loincloth. So, loathe as I am to spend 160 dollars on a pair of jeans, I bought a new pair of jeans at APC yesterday. The twee man at the store informed me puckishly that one musn't wash the jeans for a calendar year. It takes that long for the jeans to properly breathe, like wine in a decanteur, to relax, to stretch, to become comfortable not only with themselves but to you as well. This, I thought and even suggested to him, was idiotic. What if one soils his jeans? I wondered. Additionally, not washing anything for a year seems like a bad idea. Anything you wash, I figure, should be washed more that that. But no. He insisted. So now I have a pair of jeans so stiff and so tight they stand on their own two legs. It's like another roommate in my house. I talk to him, my New Cure size 31. Right now I'm telling him how annoying the WNYC pledge drive is because I already fucking gave money and I have the tote to prove it. He's commiserating with me.
There is another option however. One can take ones jeans into an ocean. This is called ocean washing and is officially sanctioned by Atelier de Production et de Création. This method consists of taking your jeans to the beach, wading into the water with your jeans, emerging, rubbing your jeans with sand, and repeating. Now the closest body of water to me is the East River. There's that little beach thing in Stuyvesant Cove BUT the East River is a fetid stankpit full of corpuscles, corpses and pustules. Not only that but it's 29 degrees Fahrenheit which is why, if you see me in the next year, I'll be wearing a tight stiff pair of soiled jeans.
