From the Street with Alfie: An open invitation to my pants party

I was on the phone with my interior designer about a set of stackable leather chairs when my eyes locked on my soul mate. I dropped the phone and unfurled the most glorious pair of silver pants this side of the Milky Way.

I was in the middle of working “The Best Garage Sale Ever,” at Vitale Studios. Considering the number of art pieces sold, and the fact that John Vitale was as excited as a young artist drawing his first live nude, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more art sales gallivanting as garage sales.

Art was just one of many commodities cleaned out of these hipsters’ studios and put on sale. This was the crème de la crème of trendy second-hand goods. Thrift store hunters didn’t have to search through racks of Christmas sweaters that smelled of nursing homes and mothballs to find the perfectly ironically hip shirt. Cool stuff was everywhere: a bamboo furniture set, shelves of high-fashion high heels in supermodel sizes, art supplies, treasure trolls, designs and shirts by Blue Lucy, rhinestone belts, lighting equipment, Japanese lanterns, long coats with fake fur collars, knitted scarves and, of course, my luscious silver pants.

I didn’t ask permission before taking the pants in the bathroom and getting naked.Hovering 3 inches above my ankles, the leggings were just my size. I tried out multiple positions I would have never attempted with lesser pants, and the flexible material knew just how to accommodate my moves. Under normal circumstances, I’d have worn the pants without any undergarments, but as I was working at a garage sale, I felt it a bit distasteful to have a fruit basket protruding around the front seam, so I braved the horrid underwear lines and bunching in the name of civility.


Originally, the pants cost $4, but Carrie, the previous owner, agreed to come down a buck considering I was already strapped into the pants and wasn’t willing to give them up without a fight. She knew just how agile they would make me. $3 was a steal considering the pants were worn by a real live woman. Carrie was even gracious enough to give me the pants’ history and handling instructions so that I could pass the knowledge along when it came time for my children to wear these warrior garments.

“I bought them at Rave, for a superhero party.” she said.

“Fittingly enough,” I said. “I’m a superhero.”

“Really? What’s your power?”

“I can wear the shit out of shiny girls’ clothes.”

Nobody wanted to fuck with me after that. Like Clark Kent dressed in tights, they could tell something had irrevocably changed about me.

“Three dollars!” exclaimed Kaylee, a member of the Vitale design syndicate, after examining the quality of the stitching. “You could melt those down and sell them for a fortune. Shit. I should have invested in silver pants.”

I didn’t dare take the pants off for the rest of the event. I could see how others kept eyeing them, wanting to feel their healing power and to be comforted by the silky metal material.

“How much?” one overwhelmed shopper asked, holding a bundle of bills to me as if sucked in by the magnetic material. I told her she didn’t have to pay to touch my pants. It turned out she just wanted to buy a flashy purse and assumed I was the person to talk to. Still, it’s irrefutable that the silver pants convinced her that I was the person in charge.

The power of the pants was proven when I asked if I could take a picture of a nicely tanned, tattooed and trim woman named Chrissy, and she asked if I would also like her phone number. I’m not making this up. This shit happened. Listen, I understand that I have more power over women than a blowout shoe sale, but my Macauley Culkin looks can’t take all the credit. When women say they like a guy with confidence, what they really mean is they like a guy who can pull off silver pants in the midday summer heat. And even though the tight pants shrink wrapped my junk from a full-grown Christmas fruit basket down to a bag of trail mix, the silver acted as a solar panel, energizing me for the rest of the day like some kind of topical Viagra.


Follow Alfie on Twitter , Facebook , or at shawnalff.com

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