I Rest My Case

I know I have been a little harsh on Winter this month. I mean, he totally deserves it, but I thought maybe I should give some sort of explanation for my hatred. I've sorted through my long list of reasons, and decided the best explanation is that Winter combines two of my deepest hates into a terrible 5-6 month ordeal: being cold and dress pants. I know I addressed my hate for dress pants in this previous post and several of my other old posts address how much I hate being cold. I've also said how much I love summer and dresses way back here.

I work in an office where the attire is 'business casual.' I know there seems to be a lot of variation among what people consider business casual, but I take that to mean I should dress up more than my weekend attire of comfy jeans and a hoodie. For a non-fashionista such as myself, dresses are perfect for business casual. Dresses allow me to look put-together without any of the laboring over what shirt is the right color, cut, and style to go with what pants. Well, in winter, it is really too cold to wear dresses most of the time. Sometimes you get lucky with a not-too-frigid day and can wear a dress or skirt with tights and tall boots, but for the most part no. For the most part, a girl in a business casual workplace in the Midwest must wear the dreaded dress pants.

Dress pants are so terrible. Inexpensive ones pill up and stretch out to the point that you look like you're wearing knobby jockey pants, bagging all around your butt and hips. Nice ones are very expensive, but they stretch out a little too (not as much, but still!). I try to buy my dress pants on clearance at nicer stores, but they still set me back at least $35. That is a lot of money for an article of clothing I don't even like!

Then there is the problem of what size to purchase. I'm 5'3". That makes me too tall for petite sizes unless I am going to wear ballet flats. Did I mention I'm 5'3"? I don't own any ballet flats. But regular sizes are made for women who are at least 5'8". They are usually too long for me, even wearing my tallest heels. That means I either have to pay to have them altered (making them cost more money) or I have to try to hem them myself (which I have tried with varying degrees of success). Ugh.

So, I'm kinda screwed on the length. There's nothing I can really do about that. Size is something else. I put on the size that fits at the store and it looks okay. But I know that if I buy that size, by the third time I wear the pants, they will be trying to fall off my hips. However, if I buy the next-size-down, they are pretty tight. Tight enough that the first few times I wear them, I will be self-conscious about just how tight they are. Yet, I'm always concerned that I will buy the tighter pair and they won't stretch and I'll be stuck with tight pants that I feel weird wearing in public. See why I hate dress pants?

I think I've covered the being cold thing pretty well in my most recent winter posts. I do think it is physically painful to be cold and I hate it. And I have to wear dress pants to work in the winter to try to prevent myself from being that cold and feeling that pain. And the cycle continues. As I said before, there are a lot of other reasons why I hate winter, but dress pants and being cold were the two that won out for writing's sake. I will try not to complain any more about winter on my blog (this month). I think I've provided a good argument and offered some insight into my insanity. I rest my case.