Pants

I bought a long-overdue new pair of pants last week. Two pairs, actually, as I had to return the first when they proved too tight. That second pair seemed fine when I tried them on, quite comfortably so, but a few days wear has caused the fabric to stretch, and now they're irritatingly, need-to-be-pulled-up-every-three-minutes loose.

I seem to have difficulty buying pants that fit — for some reason, they're either too big, or too long. The pair I replaced were both, the cuffs inevitably catching under my shoes and dragging along the ground, fraying with wear. I've worn them far longer than I should have.

It isn't as if my weight has changed ― not by much, at any rate ― and my height is almost certainly the same. But I shop for clothes so infrequently I can never seem to remember the size I need. And even when I do, the size doesn't seem consistent across different types of pants.

Obviously, there is some mystic wisdom to buying pants that I have yet to recognize.