Zippers and Lattes

I made some coffee in a regular drip-style coffee pot today, and it was fairly decent. It goes without saying that coffee from the perfect percolator would have been infinitely better, but this stuff was not too bad. It brought to mind a little story about a boy named Chuck and his nylon trousers.

It seems that Chuck was rather enamored of those nylon trousers that were all the rage at one point in the 1980's – they usually had a number of zippers on them – more zippers and pockets than any man could want, need or use. In the trade they were referred to as “parachute pants.” In retrospect we refer to them as “lame.” Such was the nature of so many things from the 1980's, such as “hair bands” and “the moonwalk.”

I stray from the story, however.

Chuck loved his red parachute pants, and no one could ever figure out exactly why. He continued to wear these lil' devils well past their demise in popular fashion, and so it was that he found himself on a blind date at a coffee shop on the upper east-side, clad in the aforementioned “parachute pants.” Don't ask why, children, just let Uncle Tom tell the story.

Chuck and his blind date had just been to a movie, and there they sat, sipping some sorts of coffee drinks while seated at a high table and stools. The young lady frequently threw nervous glances at Chuck's legs and then even more nervous glances around the shop.

“She thinks I'm hot,” thought Chuck, “she keeps checking out my legs.” This thought alternated with “she likes my pants,” and Chuck was sure this date was going to be the first of many. He never let enter his mind the thought “these pants are lame.”

At the close of the evening, pleasantries were exchanged and Chuck brought up the inevitable, “can I call you sometime?”

“I think I'm moving away,” the young lady replied. “To another state.”

“Really?” Where?

“Away. Thanks for the movie and the coffee. Umm, bye. Good night.”

Chuck walked slowly back to his car, his trousers “shushing” in the night.

“Damn,” he thought to himself, “If I'd known I'd never see her again I would have made her pay for the coffee.”

Chuck eventually finished a PhD in Particle Physics and most nights after work he sits home alone playing mahjong online. His parachute pants have lain dormant for almost twenty years, neatly folded and silent at the bottom of a box in the cedar closet.