One of life’s great mysteries is how a man, unlike a tree, can grow to maturity with no increase in girth. Why, just the other day my friend John was bragging that he still wears the same size blue jeans that he wore in high school. Same waist size, anyway.
“But what about your inseam?” I asked. “Has that remained constant as well?”
“No,” he answered. “It’s shrinking. “I’m a man, not a tree.”
“So you’re getting shorter?”
“Evidently. What happens is, as we grow older, we grow shorter. Our bones are subject to the downward tug of gravity. The older we get the stronger the pull, until one day, wham! You unrecline your La-Z-Boy and find you can’t stand up. Old Man Gravity’s gotcha.”
It’s an interesting theory. I’m going to add it to my list, which is quite long. It so happens that I, too, still wear the same size blue jeans I wore in high school. This in spite of the fact I’ve gained sixty pounds since then, most of it around my middle and some around my neck. Interestingly, I still can wear the same necktie that I wore to my junior prom, although nowadays it barely reaches as far south as my belly button. I blame the Windsor knot.
Recently I witnessed something that gave me a start. A fellow just a few feet from where John and I were fishing bent over to retrieve a lure from his tackle box.
“I have a new theory,” I told John. “I’m wondering if maybe we’re wearing our pants too low.”
“Too low?”
“Yes. Have you ever wondered why, whenever we go fishing, there are no women around?
“I have wondered. But, then, why should the lake be any different from anywhere else?
“Because every once in a great while we catch a fish, and have to bend over to lift it from the net. Or else we bend over to fetch a beer from the cooler, and when we do, the view from behind is like “Moonrise, Hernandez.”
“So you’re saying that women are not big fans of Ansel Adams?
“What I’m saying is, women are not turned on by male cleavage. You could dangle the Hope diamond down there and it wouldn’t make any difference. In fact, I suspect jewelry would only make it worse. You could undergo surgical butt implants or wear push-up underpants, and it would probably cause them to run screaming for cover.
So you think it’s possible we’ve gotten too big for our britches?
“Only one way to find out,” I said. “Fetch me that tape measure from the tackle box. The one we use to measure fish.”
“Measure fish? Are you kidding? We never measure fish. We always estimate.