There are only a few things to like about sweatpants. They are relatively cozy, easy to do splits in and can be washed in piping hot water and dried for an hour without having to worry about whether or not they will shrink. But that's about it. When I see someone in public, wearing sweatpants, I often assume they live in a halfway house. There is something very criminal about sweatpants. They are cheap, they come in a ziplock bag when you buy them at the store and they are easy to slide on in case the cops come rattling sturdy fists at the front door. If you've ever wanted to look as though you are fresh off the prison bus, slip on a pair of sweatpants.
My abhorrence for sweatpants came into full-swing the week of my 17th birthday. My friend Vanny and I had a long night partying in the dry woods of Grand County with a few friends. We spent 8 hours tripping our tits off in blue spruce trees. A girl named Sosey flip-flopped between laughing, crying and screaming I want to go to 7-11! More than once, my friend Mario mistook me for a mouse. Two neanderthals, Marty and Ken, chased us around demanding blow-jobs. It was a petrifying night. A night that banned all hallucinogenics from my life forever.
The sunrise inched its way into the campsite. Sleepless and still abuzz, Vanny and I begged Marty, the only person there with a vehicle, to bring us to town so we could hitchhike back to our house. Fuck off he said, still peeved that none of us ladies wanted to bone him. A while later after Vanny and I pooled together a few dollars from our bags, we bribed him into to letting us ride in the back of his truck for the 20 mile trip to town.
Vanny and I walked down the silent Sunday streets of Granby in too-short skirts and smeared red lipstick. Our skin was covered in dirt and campfire smoke. We had twigs in our hair and black snot trickling from our noses. Vanny, who had to work in two hours (at a candy store) started to panic. Oh God, I’m still so high. How am I going to work like this? The thought of her dishing out candy to little kids, tripping and paranoid, tossed me into fits of laughter.
As we reached the highway I put my thumb out. One car sped by and I playfully flipped them off. A few more cars zipped by and I did the same. Then a large maroon Chevy pickup truck pulled over. A skinny arm attached to a skinny hand waved to us from the driver’s seat. I opened the door to the truck and pushed forward the front seat so that Vanny could sit in the back seat. It was warm in the truck. Country music played softly on the radio. A Christmas tree air freshener hung from the rear-view mirror. The man behind the wheel looked like a wax figure. He wore an orange trucker’s hat, a royal blue sweatshirt and matching royal blue sweatpants. He was obviously excited to have picked up two young, filthy looking girls on the side of the road and began to chat us up. Vanny sat quietly in the back seat while I did all the talking. He asked us where we were from and what did for fun in Grand County. My answers were short and vastly untrue, but friendly.
Ten minutes into our ride he asked us if we would like to smoke some weed. I was surprised that this kind of man even considered such a thing. He looked like a farmer headed to the gym. Of course I bellowed, fiendish for green stinky stuff. He smiled and soon pulled over next to a pond that the townspeople of Fraser referred to as “the pond.” He rolled a giant fatty with his fluorescent green sticky weed while boasting about his recent first-place winning at a Cannibis Cup. At this point I warmed right up to the kind stranger in sweatpants and told him all about our shenanigans the night before. Then, as I took my third hit off of his joint, I noticed a sharp wedge shape in the crotch area of his sweatpants. I stared at it for a second just to assure myself that it was in fact a boner and not hallucination brought on by all the stuff I’d ingested over the last 10 hours.
I inhaled more smoke and slowly opened the door. I began to ramble. So, I think we are going to get out here. My boyfriend is waiting on me and she needs to get to work. My boyfriend is pretty insane and I wouldn’t want him to wonder where I’ve been. He’s a crazed boyfriend that boyfriend of mine. Thanks for the ride. We’d better get going. I pulled Vanny out of the truck, slammed the door and desperately tried to get the image of his sweatpant boner out of my head.
