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Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Starch? At the Ready!

It’s a flurry of excitement, here at Casa de Pearl, as I ready myself for another foray into black-pantsed-and-white-shirted encounters of the catering kind. My shirt has been starched into crisp yet bland submission; my practical shoes have been located; my favorite underwear, a trusted pair with a strict no-ride policy, have been set aside.

And my black pants are ready.

Funny thing about those black pants, though: they’re actually Mary’s. We’ve decided, in that quirky, kinda endearing but kinda weird way that women have, that I look better in her pants and she looks better in mine.

There’s a joke in there somewhere, but we’ll let it ride for a bit.

I don’t think men trade pants. Then again, I’m not sure.

I text T. “Have you ever traded pants with a friend?”

“Why,” he writes. “What have you heard?”

So that’s probably the answer right there.

Serving jobs are a fertile land of stress, hustle, and humor. It is a world of shouted jokes, often in Spanish; of carefully balanced plates and mysteriously crusted and rejected forks. There will be glasses to fill with ice and water, place settings to be set, napkins to be napped. I don’t want to get too detailed here – it’s all very technical – but suffice it to say that at the end of the night, I will be several inches shorter and several twenties richer.

Hey. Who has more fun than me?

17 comments:

Dawn@Lighten Up! said...

I see a black magic marker in our future!!

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
Absolutely nobody would trade pants with me; unless the pedal-pusher/harem look is back in... Be rich Pearl. YAM xx

joeh said...

"What have you heard" may be the funniest answer ever. I don't know when but i will use it someday.

I have never traded any garment with another man.

Pearl said...

Dawn, I really should keep one in my purse. You know, for those emergency fixes!

Yam, I'm not very tall myself!

Joe, Please. :-) Use it. And think of me.

vanilla said...

The starch, the jokes, the hustle. The twenties: and there it is.

jenny_o said...

Who has more fun than you? WE DO. Of course. We get to read about it without any of the actual, you know, WORK.

'Course, we don't get to have any of the actual camaraderie, feeling of accomplishment, or money, either. Maybe it's a draw.

Shoshanah Marohn said...

There's even a book about girls trading pants (the sisterhood) but yeah, no Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants. There's a joke in there, too, but I don't know what!

Jono said...

I only get into my own pants. And there are never any twenties in them. Damn!

Shelly said...

What's a pair of pants between friends?

Linda O'Connell said...

I traded pants with someone once. It was disastrous.

Anonymous said...

I'll bet rich short Pearl is a lot of fun

Catalyst said...

No one! (Has more fun than you, Pearl.)

River said...

Is it the several twenties that make the night worthwhile? Or what you see and hear while working a catering job?
We certainly enjoy reading about these jobs.

the walking man said...

Men don't trade pants, we covet our pants, we'd rather lose gold than our pants.

It has to do with the way we shop. We walk in door, look at sizes on the sticky tags, believe no evil will have thought to switch the tags with a smaller size and purchase them with one foot already pointed towards the door. When we get home and find that all is well with our purchase, we simply gloat to our spouses about the right way to shop. Our mistakes we bury, with the the ashes from the burned receipts.

Men do not trade pant's because like our lawn tool we know that the borrower will be years in returning them and they won't fit right anymore because the borrower has them permaformed to his own butt. No men do not trade pants for any reason.

We will though, for the right amount of money, sell a map to the graveyard of the poorly purchased pants grave.

sage said...

can I send over my shirts to be starched

Anonymous said...

It's good to take a ride, unless you are underpants.

Connie said...

My husband and son trade clothes on occasion. Don't tell them I told you that.