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Friday, January 10, 2014

On the Black and White, They Ride; or Mary and Pearl Get Ready to Make with the Servitude

Mary arrived with a paper bag full of pants.

“Oooooh!”

She drops the bag of pants – of used pants, to be precise – on the ground at my feet.

“Ann Taylor,” she says.  “LL Bean, Levi.”

“My size?”

“Yeppers.”

Jon walks by, shakes his head in a resigned fashion, a movement usually reserved for those watching dogs attack mirrors or, say, children pushing pudding into their ears.

“This is awesome,” I say.

“I also brought these,” she says, pulling a last pair of pants out of the bag. 

Black pants. 

“Are these them?” I say.



Flashback: December, 2013, basement at Nye’s.  Mary and Pearl are black-pantsed and white-shirted, starched to a crackly crunch. 

“I think I got something in my shoe,” Mary says. 

Nye’s, a building that was once three buildings, is a funny place.  Stairs that lead to no where, the remnants of the brick foundations of the original buildings form interesting speed bumps/opportunities to test one’s balance.

The basement’s backrooms are fascinating.

Mary takes a seat to pull off her shoe – and her eyes go wide.

“Holy Hannah,” she murmurs.

“What?” I say.

“I just sat on a nail.”

She stands up, turns around; and sure enough, there’s a hole, right there on the very bottom of the ol’ bumper.

Our eyes meet.  We burst into laughter.

“Oh for cryin’ out loud, Mary.  Are you wearing just enormously white drawers?  Or is that really the color of your butt?”

She feels around.  “Those aren’t undies,” she laughs.  “That’s the smooth, unblemished plane of my alabaster ass.”

It’s true. Mary, she of the red hair and blue eyes, has the coloring of a porcelain imp. 

She borrows a black marker from the bartender, and in mere moments, voila.  The hole in her pants is invisible.



Mary hands me the pants.  I’ve borrowed them before; and frankly, they fit like a dream.

“Can you fix them?” she says.

“No problem,” I say.

“You fix ‘em,” she says, “and you can have ‘em.”

“Mmm,” I say.  “Free pants.”

We laugh. 

Jon walks through the room again, shaking his head wearily. 


“You guys are weird.”

26 comments:

Jeanie said...

Some might say weird, others would say resourceful, clever or a little crazy, but very talented.

Sioux Roslawski said...

You can always wear black underwear, or make a spot of black on your butt (with a Sharpie) and go without underwear, and then you wouldn't have to mend the pants.

And hey--if people are looking that closely at your rear end, give them something to look at.

Anonymous said...

Hey...why spend good money on expensive new pants when you can recycle, recirculate and ink your bottom?

jenny_o said...

That's not weird, that's just good sense.

Connie said...

HA! Necessity is the mother of invention. :D

raydenzel1 said...

Weird indeed 😝

Anonymous said...

It WORKED, didn't it?

Joanne Noragon said...

The tears are pouring. A magic markered butt. What if she had been in an accident and had to ride an ambulance and didn't have clean underwear, for her mother's sake. Just a black butt mark.

Dawn@Lighten Up! said...

And so it was that Mary covered her alabaster ass. With a Sharpie.
Amen.

Watson said...

Sat on a nail!!! 8-0
That could not only hurt, but be dangerous. Two questions:
1- have you had a recent tetanus shot, and
2- did your "butt smile" save you from disaster?

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
Huh - this is spooky; i just spent today going through my sister's wardrobe and relieving her of the stuff she'd outgrown. It involved a deal of reminisce and hoots.

Weird sisters? Fine by me! YAM xx

The Geezers said...

A little easier to mine this vein of memory, I'll bet.

"Mmm. Free pants."

joeh said...

To paraphrase Gorden Gekko

"Weird, for lack of a better word, is good"

fmcgmccllc said...

I cannot do better than Joanne, she is right---what would they say at the hospital about the "underwear"

Launna said...

Haha... this was cute... my skin color is very similar to Mary's... I have some Irish in me...

I don't tan either... I burn, I peel, I am white :)

Stef said...

OH my gosh, that is HILARIOUS! Was she bleeding at all from the puncture wound? Or was there no puncture of the skin, just the pants?

Linda O'Connell said...

Brilliant. I have been coloring my shoes and other body parts with a black permanent marker for years. You make me laugh.

River said...

Snap* My older son once handed me a black parka with a small cigarette hole burned into it by a friend who borrowed it from him. M said if I can fix the hole I can have the jacket. I darned it with matching thread and you can't see the hole unless you know where to look. Yay! Free jacket.
Mary is so nice, sharing free pants with you.

Elephant's Child said...

I can remember colouring in a patch on a co-workers dress. She had bleached a small portion of her only maternity dress. So each time she wore it, I coloured it in for her.

wellfedfred said...

Oh, I have a whole supply of magic markers for all kinds of emergencies! I even tried to color some white hairs that suddenly appeared on my head - that's the only time I can think of that marker-ing let me down.

Diane Stringam Tolley said...

I use black marker all of the time. It's amazing what sins it can cover . . .

the walking man said...

See there is the difference between men and women, you all repair, we replace.

Pauline said...

Laughed my way through your last four posts.

Tempo said...

Johns right....Oh, how he must suffer!

Pearl said...

The Magic Marker is a beautiful thing.

And no. Neither of Mary's buttocks were harmed during the creation of that nail hole. :-)

I darned them Saturday afternoon and wore them Saturday night. No one was the wiser!

Pat Tillett said...

The things that friends share with each other is amazing.
Nice story Pearl!