Cirque du No Pants: The Day My Wife Bought Me Dockers

It was like any other day. I had spent the day working. Had eaten my lunch. Had come home at the usual time. Had played with the kids. Sat down and had a nice dinner. Got the kids to bed. Watched Out of Ireland.

Oh wait....big announcement. I am trying not to drink beer. Oh wait never mind. Upon reading the silliness of that statement I have immediately cancelled my new health and fitness plan. I'm glad that's over.

OK back to story. In all honesty, the horror of the incident has actually blanked out the 24 hours immediately preceding and um..post-follow-ceding the incident. Here's what I really remember.

I'm holding a pair of pants. My wife is asking me to try them on. I'm looking at them and something....like some odd sixth sense is telling me that there is something seriously amiss...and I'm about to put one strangely short leg into the pants when all of a sudden I realize to my shock and horror while falling slowly to the ground and simultaneously slow-motion throwing/entangling myself in these pants as if they were a live grenade or a mojito or something equally nasty, that, dear lord in heaven these are Dockers.

My wife bought me Dockers.

I screamed like a little woman. You bought me Dockers? She is staring at me with a blank face.

"Yes, they're nice pants"

I adamantly avoid all attempts to be cool because I am too damn cool to be uncool to be cool. I've purposefully grown a giant pot belly and man-boobs, I wear ridiculous clothes. I have funny hair. I drive an old car. I hate people who love/hate brands. But dear god almighty all of that bullshit goes out the window when it comes to Dockers. I am too cool to wear Dockers damn it and I don't care who knows it.

My wife was very confused.

"What's wrong with Dockers? These are very nice pants."

And she's right. There's the dilemma. From my bit of marketing background I have become pretty desensitized to branding. So this aversion to Dockers must lie pretty deep in my psyche. It's like urban kryptonite. Dockers are the most sensible pants in the entire world. They are comfortable. Unoffensive. They have neat features like a cell-phone pocket. But they are Dockers. Now if they were called Clockers or Longshoremans, you wouldn't be able to peal them off of me. That would make them rad. And don't get me wrong, I have no aversion to cheap crap. I wear Dickies nonstop. I wear awesomely crappy labels like No Boundaries and Eagle Outfitters.

What's wrong with sensibility?

Don't we all crave a bit of passion? I want the life of the circus. Laughter, danger, aching loss and misery. This is the ticket we're given and I want to punch it. I want to weep in both sadness and joy, I want to roar in both laughter and anger, I want to fight for the things I love. I want to jump up on tables sometimes, I want to duck under them sometimes too. Now crazy...I got tons of crazy. Being a parent, you get paid in crazy. But it's a structured crazy. It's crazy with a schedule and a minivan. And of course, yes, I've given up on independence. I've got a brood now, I have a pack mentality.

But each and every time that I think I have fully made this transition into the middle years of my life's journey, I get blindsided. This time by a pair of pants. I know that I have no excuse to spurn Dockers. But nonetheless, I choose to jump up on this table and wave my fist in the air and do a pantless jig and howl the fact that I will wear not your pants of sensibility. I will hold onto an insensible truth that I am an insensible man.

Not wearing the pants my wife bought for me: it's as wild as dadhood gets.

Arrrrooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.