Male...Fashion?

President's Day: a federal holiday, a school hiatus, a good excuse for a 3-day weekend in the middle of the long, cold Winter. (Although not as frigid as usual...knocking wood! Throwing salt over shoulder! Wait, does that even help? Oh well, whatever it takes to continue appeasing the benevolent Winter Gods so they don't blast us with a March snowstorm!) Husband's office doesn't shut down to acknowledge George and Abe, so it was just me and the boys on our Bonus-Vacation-Monday. What to do? I racked my brains for a good idea-- visit a Historical Site? Explore a cool Nature Center? Take a hike somewhere? When I polled the under-12 electorate, though, they claimed to be "too tired" to attempt anything so ambitious on their day off. So that left us with only one option: the ever-so-thrilling Trip to Target. (Hey, they asked for it!) The bribe--I mean motivational tactic--was that Riley had his monthly allowance to spend, and Derek would get new shorts out of the venture. (Because, you know, nothing screams "bare knees" like sub-freezing February temperatures...)

So, we invaded the local Tar-jay in search of the varied items on our list: a USB drive, dishwasher soap, mouthwash, Ibuprofen, nail files, cereal. (Yes, it was a weird group of stuff...which is actually the norm for my Target jaunts...I don't know what that says about me...) And along the way we managed to find acceptable shorts for Derek. Not that he's picky, he really couldn't care less what he throws on to cover his body in the morning. It was more a matter of finding the delicate balance between "what blends into the Middle School crowd" and "what Mom's willing to pay, when she has to replace every blasted pair of shorts you own at the moment". I should back up just a bit and explain: the day before, when we were at my nephew's birthday party and Derek was running amok with his cousins, I had noticed for the first time that his current pantswear--which he'd been sporting for probably 2 years, mind you--no longer grazed his knees, where he preferred them, and I was accustomed to seeing them. Instead, they came to rest a couple of inches north of that bony landmark...which was still in no way too-revealing or overly-small, but just...unusual.

So we purchased some nice, baggy, knee-length basketball shorts that pleased both of us. And after we paid for them and were leaving the store, my understated, laid-back child commented in passing, "That's good, now my friends can stop calling me 'booty-shorts-boy'!" Are. You. Kidding. Me? I was soooooo tempted to immediately Google something like "Larry Bird 1970" or "Magic Johnson Lakers," and thereby demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt what so-called 'booty shorts' really look like. Son, you have NO idea how fortunate you are that sometime in the 80s, college students decided to instigate the Homeboy Shorts Era and cover up a great deal of physical territory that used to be hanging all out. Three little words for you, Derek: hairy male thighs. Do I need to tell you how NOT a good thing that was? Well, now we can all rest assured that Derek will be rejoining the Stylish Squad at his lunch table, in shorts that admirably hide the proper amount of his glaringly-pale limbs from public view. I'm sure it will take the young rascals (all of whom I'm pretty familiar with, so I know what I'm talking about, here) all of about 6 seconds or so to latch onto a new topic for masculine teasing and commentary. But the Booty Shorts Boy has been vanquished! (All hail Super Mom!)