Diary of Sixteens

October, 2006
So this guy comes by, picks me up off the rack, and smiles. He checks the price tag, because even in this shiny store made for middle-class America, the price tag has to be checked. He’s in luck, because I’ve been sitting here long enough to have been marked down by five bucks. The five bucks less is supposed to make me more attractive to customers, I guess. It works for him, anyway, and he tosses me in the cart he’s pushing. We go to the front of the store, where he does the little paying song-and-dance, la-di-dah, here’s your change and have a nice day, sir. Glory be, I’ve finally been bought, and now I’m getting out of here. I mean, I’ve heard horror stories of jeans that didn’t even get sold off the three dollar rack, and how embarrassing would that be? Yeesh.
We drive home and he takes me in, hands me to his wife, and I got a good look at my first owner. Yikes. I’m a size sixteen. She’s not. She’s easily an eighteen. But what does she do? She strips off what she’s wearing and tries to squeeze into me. Ack! Garg! Klech! After much swearing and rolling around on the bed, I’m zipped, and she’s comatose. But get this – she’s smiling! I’m so tight that she can’t even stand up, but both the idiot man and his idiot wife are grinning from ear to ear! Apparently, the fact that I even zipped is some major victory for them. I didn’t really care. I was about to burst at the double-reinforced seams. Then she got out of me, folded me gently and shoved me in the closet. I’m not sure why they didn’t just take me back. What am I into now?

November, 2006
I swear I cringe every time the closet light comes on. I’m not anxious to repeat that performance from a month ago. Ah, jeesh, she’s getting me out. Here we go again. On to the bed. Up to the knees. Stretch over the hips. Button, and z i-i-i-i p. Hey, that wasn’t so bad. For some reason, I remember it being much more horrific. And look at that! She’s even standing up! Her husband comes in, talking to his Dad on the phone, and hands the phone over to her. She fumbles the handoff, and the phone falls to the floor. She just looks at it. Ha, ha, take that! You can’t pick the phone up, you dumb broad! Look, just give it up!
Most women would have burst into tears at this point. But not this crazy chick. She giggles as her husband picks up the phone and hands it to her. Back on the bed to do the jeans-off wiggle. Um, question? Are we ever going to go anywhere, or am I just to keep your sweaters from getting lonely?

December, 2006
Hallelujah, we finally get to go somewhere. She decided that she’s “lost enough,” whatever that means. I think what she’s losing is the stuffing in her head. How can her hair be that dark, and yet she be so freaking stupid? We do the bed-shuffle thing and head to the car. We get in, her husband driving, and take off.
The drive was not pretty. Her meeting was not pretty. On the way back home, I came unzipped and a roll of gut flowed out like a tidal wave. Eww, it’s touching me! The moment we arrived back at the house, she yanked me off and headed in to the bathroom. Did you know that wearing your jeans too tight can give you diarrhea? Apparently so! She was in the bathroom all night, losing her guts.
Is one pair of jeans really worth it?

January, 2007
The closet light again. Oy. I really kind of feel bad about making her sick last time, but she just needs to face reality! I’m a size sixteen, and she’s not.
She picks me up, and for the first time, I notice something. She must have been washed in hot water, because she looks, well, smaller. Can humans do that? Can they shrink? We didn’t even have to do the bed wiggle to get me on this time, and I noticed a little room in the leg. What the freak is going on here?
We went for a walk. She practically ran to the post office, pulling her boy along in his little red wagon. This seems to be something that they do for enjoyment. They stopped off at a little insurance place, where she talked animatedly with the woman inside. She kinda lifted up her shirt to show off her tush, and the woman grinned. Dude, these are the grinningest people that I’ve ever seen. Must be the water.
I thought she would rip me off when we got home, but we didn’t even go in the house. We got straight in the car. Now, that’s strange. Why would we walk all the way to the frickin’ post office when she has a perfectly good car? We went to the meeting again. People hop on scales, the crazy lady writes some stuff down, gives them a pep talk, and they hop off. She seems to be some sort of worker smurf at these meetings. I wonder what the scales are for?

February, 2007
Okay, she is definitely shrinking. There is something going on here, because today, not only does she button me up standing up, but she managed to hook a thumb in my waistband. There is room in the leg, and the fat roll hanging over the top is not as pronounced as it was even last month!
I have a theory. There is something going on at that meeting. I’m going to have to try to get back to another one of those sometime soon. They talked about “losing,” and “portion-size,” and “self-control,” whatever the freak that means.

March, 2007
I made a discovery today. Clothes are disappearing. At first, I thought that it was just my imagination, but now I know it’s true. This really nice green sweater that I liked just left one day, and it never came back, not even when they put the laundry up. I wondered what was going on, but now I now.
The crazy lady went through her closet today, trying on things that she hadn’t worn for a while. Some of the things went back in the closet. Some of them went into a big plastic bag. I couldn’t really get a fix on the pattern of what went where, except that the clothes in the bag seemed to be too big for her. That doesn’t make sense to me. Why would she have bought clothes that were too big for her in the first place? Okay, yeah, so she bought me and I’m way too little for her, so maybe she doesn’t try on her clothes at the store. Then again, I’m really not too little for her anymore. I’m actually moving towards comfortable.

April, 2007
Today she put me on without even bothering to unbutton or unzip me. I’m downright baggy.

May, 2007
I’m in the bag. She went through the closet again, and I think it’s time for her to do some shopping. I went in here with a pair of size eighteen jeans and two other sixteens. They seemed to notice the shrinking, too, and we decided that she really is getting smaller. The roll of flab that used to hang out over us isn’t there anymore. Perhaps it was surgically removed, but I don’t think so. I think it just . . . left.
I don’t want to be in the bag. I want to be back in the closet. I promise that I wouldn’t make fun of her ever again. Just let me out of the bag.

June, 2007
Ha! I’m out of the bag! She took me to the meeting again, and gave me to a friend. They talked for a while, and then she handed over a few bags, mine included. The new lady opened the bag, and ohmigod here we go again. She’s at least an eighteen.