So I’ve got these Panda Pants…
[I figured I would go direct with this one, because, let’s be
honest here—the words “So I’ve got these Panda Pants” are rarely uttered into
the blogosphere. Also I didn’t know how to start this blog.]
But anyway…my Panda Pants. And yep, the capitalization of
Panda Pants is necessary. The capitalization is necessary because these pants
are not just ordinary pants--not quite the Sisterhood of the Traveling variety,
they’re pajama bottoms, but still-- these pajama bottoms are special. I’ll explain, so bear with me. (Corny
Pun Count: 1).
For one, I must reiterate that these pajama pants have
freakin’ pandas on them. And not just a few cartoon pandas here and there—these
pants have, like, 50 pandas, all smiling at me against a sky-blue cotton tapestry
that match their sky-blue panda eyes, which I don’t think is anatomically
accurate but whatever.
For another, these fifty-something, anatomically-inaccurate
blue-eyed pandas are so joyful, jumping with their yellow daisy flowers and
four panda paws spread high and wide, like “You can do it, Lindsay! Today is
your day!” And they are just happy to be frolicking on the fabric that
constitutes my pajama bottoms: My Left-Knee Panda, my Lower-Ankle Panda, my
Calf-Panda. All just happy to be there.
These are happy pandas. These are my Happy Panda Pants.
There are two more things you need to know about my Panda
Pants:
First, they weren’t always called Panda Pants (capital P’s
necessary). Actually, they didn’t have a name at all, since they were just
regular old pajama pants. But if they did have a name prior to Panda Pants, it
would have been The Pajama Pants I Kept At My Parent’s House and Wore When I Came
Home Some Weekends in College and Had Forgotten to Bring My Normal Pajama Pants.
Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as easily as Panda Pants.
My mom was the one who gave these precious pajama bottoms
their moniker. In doing so, she simultaneously gave me a wake-up call. A wake
up call I guess I needed.
Last fall, I had already finished classes on campus at CMU,
but still needed to finish my thesis so I could graduate that December. While
at home, plugging away at the research, I had gotten in a sort of…funk. I was
frustrated with the research process, worried I wouldn’t graduate, and
concerned about the next steps of my life. And so, as a subconscious result, I
picked up the habit of wearing my pajama pants with the cartoon pandas on them….often.
So often, in fact, that one morning while rocking the Pants
and working on my thesis downstairs, I looked up and noticed my mom looking at
me awkwardly. Or rather, looking at my legs awkwardly. She was eyeing up the
pandas.
“What?” I asked her, annoyed, my eyebrows raised.
“Lindsay,” my mom said in a tone that suggested an important
life lesson would follow after it. She stood up from the kitchen table, her
brown coffee cup in one hand and a concerned look on her face. “Get out of
those panda pants.”
“What do you mean, ‘Get out of those panda pants’? I
replied, looking down at the pandas’ friendly faces, then back up at my mother.
“Mom, these pants are comfortable.”
“They’re old,” my mom replied, walking over to the coffee
pot and pouring herself a cup. She has taken her coffee the same way my entire
life: Black, caffeinated, Folger’s. No sugar, no cream. When it comes to
coffee, my mom is hardcore.
“I am sick of you wearing them every day,” she continued in
an almost amused tone. “They are almost half-your age.”
“They are…um…not,” I said, looking down.
My mom was laughing now. “Yes, they are! And you don’t need
to wear them. Wear your Victoria’s Secret pajama pants, those PINK ones, or better yet, wear
jeans.”
Which brings my to the second detail you need to know about
these pajama pants:
I may or may not—OK, I may-- have purchased these pajama
bottoms in seventh grade. When I was 12. [The 1999 Version of Lindsay, all
metal-mouthed/head-geared, strawberry Lip-Smackered and boy-crazy.] Which would make these pajama pants
13-years-old, one year older than the age I was one I first bought them.
 |
| There's me, in all of my 7th-grade glory, wearing the Panda Pants. I remember being bummed my dad was blinking in this photo. All well. |
“But they pandas…they’re telling me today is my day…” I
replied, to my mom, looking sorrowfully down at Right-Knee Panda, who was grinning and
leaping and holding it’s yellow daisy flower.
“Honey,” my mom looked at me wistfully as she walked
upstairs. “They’re pajama pants; they aren’t telling you it’s your day. If
anything, your panda pals should be telling you “Goodnight.” Because they are
pajamas, which are items of clothing that you should wear at night. But it’s
not night; it’s 1:03 p.m. in the afternoon. And you are 24-years-old. Work on
your thesis, do great things. The Panda Pants have gotta go.” She went into the
bathroom, closed the door.
I sighed. My mom always knew how to make a point. Some
people eat chocolate for comfort. Others work out.
Apparently I, a then 24-years-old woman, wear pajamas with
cartoon pandas I first purchased when I was 12.
So that day, I got out of my Panda Pants. Sometimes only
your mom can say the thing that gives you an even louder wake-up call then that
annoying “Eeeh, eeh, eeh” sound every alarm clock makes.
I will admit, however, that much to my mother’s dismay, I
did not—though I tried; the pants were in the Goodwill box for awhile—get rid
of the Panda Pants. It has now become a joke between my mom and I, those silly
Panda Pants. I still wear them. But I don’t need them for comfort like I did. Or think I did.
Long live the Panda Pants. I’m crossing my
fingers Panda Claus will reward me. (Corny Pun Count: 2).
