I’m Set In My Ways and here’s the whole story of what happened. It’s an unbelievable set of circumstances.

For years I bought these certain kind of jeans. It’s about all I wear. They’re made by Wrangler. They are Angler Jeans, I guess mostly made for fishermen. But I liked them because they are made with some stretchy elastic in the waist that fits my nice rotund physique.

A year or two back, probably another thing the pandemic did, Wrangler quit making them. I had a fairly good supply on hand, maybe a half dozen pair. Over time I ruined a couple of them crawling over a fence with one and got bleach all over another. It goes without saying that if you are cycling between four pairs of jeans they are getting washed pretty often and I think I’ll start having thread failures before long, and I’m going to need to replace them.

I’ve never worn used clothing in my life, except some hand me downs from Kenny when we were kids, but out of desperation I went on eBay and a pair exactly like I needed popped up. I bought them at the asking price which was far less than I had ever bought at Cabela’s or Bass Pro. But add about $9 shipping it got the price on up there. But that was all alright.

Now if y’all ever noticed I have kinda short legs for a fairly big ol boy. I‘m not even going to get into the waist size, but the length I buy is a 30” inseam. The lady sent them and they appear to be brand new. But I put them in the washer with real hot water and ran them through, because you can’t tell if the other fellow that owned them may have peed in them at some point or worse. Heck he could have died in them. Anyway I figured I had sanitized them and everything was fine.

When I took them out of the dryer and hung them up I noticed that the tag said they were a 34” inseam. Well I was a little put out about them being mislabeled, but I have a daughter in law that I’ve got involved in doing some hemming up for me before, so she picked em up and I told her to take 4” off of both legs.

Come to find out the lady selling them knew they had already had 4” cut off of them, so that’s why she advertised them as 30” length.

Now don’t y’all think I look real dandy strutting around here in a pair of britches with 26” legs?

Well I’ll tell you the truth that very easily could have happened, had it not been for that very diligent daughter in law double checking the size to a pair of pants I already owned.

Disaster avoided. Today I’m wearing that new pair of used jeans for the first time and they are looking good and feeling even better.

Now I just have to keep searching eBay for more or get ready to lower my standards and find another kind of trousers that I can be satisfied with. Heck I could use a little bit of discipline and drop a few pounds so I don’t need pants with a stretchy waistband. What a novel idea!