(lygenztia *125) Ok..take a deep breath.

I had a funny conversation at the pub last night, that got me to thinking about clothing…and age.

As a man, when someone asks us our pant size we inevitably answer with this.
“Well it depends…in some stuff I’m a 34, in others a 36..but mostly 34. Mostly.”
Then, we squeeze into our 34’s knowing they are too tight, but all the while blaming the pants. So, being stubborn we buy 34’s and refuse to try them on, or admit that they might not fit. We take them home, wedge into them and hope beyond hope that they will stretch.

Then there is the usual refrain to our wives.

“geez, I just don’t know what’s going on. These pants used to fit great and now they’re tight. I know that I haven’t gained any weight”. Now that comment is ironic, hilarious and misleading in and of itself. Almost no man actually weighs himself. Ladies, on the other hand, do it fairly frequently. But men, well we just assume (and know for sure) that we haven’t gained an ounce since college.

Men (especially middle age men) are brutal for this. “Honey, I am in the best shape of my life.”

And our reasoning for this statement? Oh, that’s easy….
1) we belong to a gym. (we never go, but we belong to a club)
2) we “work off” 800 calories playing hockey once a week (then drink 7 beers and 3 pounds of deep fried chicken wings for a total intake of 3200 calories)
3) We count “working out” as getting out of our car to walk to the door at work, taking a load of laundry down the stairs and dumping it on the floor, taking out the garbage once a week and sex, of course.
4) “I walk all the time” Mostly, this is walking from our barstool to the washroom at the Pub.
5) We eat “only” one bag of nachos and dip per sitting. When we “were young” we would eat two, but eating only one bag of nachos/chips and dip is much more healthy in the long run.
6) We “limit” ourselves to only 4 plates when we go to a buffet.
7) We only drink beer on weekends. (which is Thursday, Friday, Saturday and especially Sunday) We do occasionally drink beer when we play hockey or baseball on a Tuesday or Wednesday, but we earned that. And sometimes you do need a beer or two on a Monday, just to start the week off right. But really, we only drink (mostly) on weekends.

So, even with all this rigorous activity and careful dietary planning we still find that our pants are shrinking. Weird eh? In my case, I am sure it’s the type of detergent my wife is using on our laundry.