Short Changed

By Jim Hagarty

Shorts again, Jim? Good Lord. Get a new obsession.

Sorry, my mind wanders continuously but now and then it stops and fixes on something. Could be anything.

So I bought two new pairs of shorts. They are cheap shorts and now I am paying a sad and heavy price for my impulsiveness. After all, I have been in the market for new shorts for five years. I should have taken another year or two.

No offence intended to the clothesmakers in whatever country these abominations were manufactured but they were not designed for a human being of my weight and build. Or any other human being for that matter. I think they just cut out a prototype, held it up to the light and declared, “Close enough.”

I can’t get my legs through the openings. I can’t sit down without giving myself a hernia. Getting the fly down is like trying to unlock a bank vault without the combination. When I walk, I feel body parts rubbing together that shouldn’t be rubbing together.

But they look good, so there’s that.

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.