The Modernistic Trousers

The ACTUAL 'Modernistic Trousers'

Why do we call them Modernistic Trousers?

F i L was trying to describe them to me.

“The things I bought with [No. 2 son]”

“What things?”

“These things” (waving his hands up and down his body)

“Clothes?”

“Yes.  Clothes.  Here” (flapping hands at legs)

“Trousers?”

“Yes.  Those Modernistic Trousers!”

“Jeans?  That have been around for 150 years? Do you mean jeans?”

“Yes! Jeans!”

The name has stuck.

F i L has some track pants.  He wears them a lot because they are easy to get on and comfortable. Because he wears them in lot they are stained, stretched and just look plain awful.  Embarrassingly he goes out in them.

On a Saturday he goes to a coffee morning, that’s held in a church in town, to have a cup of tea, a piece of cake and some conversation.  Husband meets him there towards the end of the morning and together they look around the shops.  One such Saturday, husband arrived to find  F i L wearing his track pants, a dirty stained Windcheater that we can’t get him to part with, that’s three sizes too big, and a jumper with last nights dinner down the front.  In husband’s opinion (and possibly every one elses) he looked like a tramp.

We decided that he needed to buy some new clothes.  The track pants were horrendous so we suggested as a pair of casual trouser he might like to try wearing a pair of jeans.  He is 79 years old and had never worn a pair of jeans.

So the following week husband took him off to Marks and Sparks (the only place we can get him to buy clothes in ‘because they are quality clothes’).  They got there at around 11am and for the next 2 hours I received, via my phone, a series of photos of F i L in various pairs of casual trousers including jeans.  At 1pm I joined husband at the shop to offer moral support and by 5pm we had finally bought a pair of  camel coloured, chino cut, jeans.  6 hours in 1 shop to buy 1 pair of trousers!

For the next two weeks he wore them every day.

After these two weeks he told husband that he didn’t like these trousers.  They didn’t fit him!  Remember he took 6 hours trying them on.

Image via Wikipedia

On further pressing it turned out that he was struggling to go to the toilet wearing them.  He had to take them down to do this.  This from the man who had been living in track pants!

Not only that, but they had been chaffing, and he was having to put cream on his ‘private area’ as it was so sore!

Then he said “Would you like the trousers son?”

Chaffing and toilet problems whilst wearing these jeans.  Husband went green in the face an turned them down.

The Time Altering Shower

On Friday the last of F i L’s 5 siblings is being buried.  Husband and I have the unenviable task of driving F i L for 7 hours to the town where this is taking place, checking him into a hotel (and us as chaperones), then having him ready and at the service on time the following morning.

We didn’t get full details until today so the hotel we had initially booked has turned out to be 25 miles away from where we start (although it’s very close to where all of the services finish) so given the amount of time it takes F i L to get ready each morning we felt it would be better to move to a hotel closer to the start.

“Oh No! Just when my luck had started to change!” was his response to this. “I won three packets of biscuits in the raffle at my club today and now this! It’s all gone wrong again!”

Nothing has gone wrong.  We’re just changing the hotel we’re staying in to give him more time in the morning.  He didn’t even know where he was staying in the first place.

We ran through all of the criteria we had been looking for:

• Lift because he can’t walk up and down stairs
• Parking on site because he can’t walk far
• Large enough building that he won’t disturb people if he wanders in the night
• Late enough check in that we can travel after work (so we only lose one days income)

“Well,” says he “the important thing is to get there.  I’ve got all of the following day to get ready.”

“No you haven’t.” I remind him. “You need to be up and dressed, and have breakfast, and be ready to go by 9am” (this allows for what we call faffing time, where he faffs about looking for shoes, tablets, pink rabbits, whatever grabs his attention.

“No problem” he says assuredly.

“Are you sure?” I ask as gently as I am able.  “You usually struggle to be ready by 11am”

“Yes you’re right I do.  Simple!  I won’t have a shower.”

My F i L lives in a world where not having a shower saves 2 hours!

I tell him that if he’s not having a shower he is not going to sit anywhere near me.

“This having showers every morning is all nonsense.  When I was at work we never had a shower every morning. We never had time!”

Husband and I looked at each other and laughed.  Husband has his morning routine down to such a fine art that he can be up, showered, dressed and out of the house in approx 12 minutes.

“You had time.  You just didn’t use it.  Time hasn’t changed.”

“Things are different.  In these affluent times you can shower every day, but we couldn’t.”

“You could, but you didn’t.  You had the time, you just didn’t do it.”

Husband said “You stank!  You just couldn’t smell it cos you all stank!”

“It was a different time. When Men were Men and Ladies were Ladies!”

Husband was justifiably worried at this point that I may be about to throttle F i L.  He keeps making references to ‘You Ladies’ usually attached to cooking, housework,  and organisation even though husband does his fair share of all of these.

I took a deep breath and left the room for a breather but could hear him say again “I won’t wash!”

I shouted back “You have plenty of time and you will wash!”

As I stepped back into the room I said “Habits have changed but time hasn’t.”

“Yes, you’re right dear.  We’re just having a laugh!”

I asked husband if he was having a laugh.

Without a hint of humour: “No.”

“No,” I said, “neither am I.”