In Which We Deprive Teenage Boys of Shorts

My family did all of our memorial things early this weekend, so today we were free to shop.

Specifically, we went shorts shopping.

Do you know how hard it is to find shorts that actually reach the knee? A few years ago, it was not so hard. But now it's a challenge so humongous that they should probably make a Mission: Impossible movie about it.

My mom had heard about a big shorts sale at Old Navy, so she took me and my little sisters there.

What followed was a bewildering shopping experience. All of the knee-length women's shorts that I saw were in plus sizes. And conversely, all of the plus-sized shorts seemed to be knee length. Petite girls might have reasons to purchase knee-length shorts. And there very well may be plus-sized women who prefer shorter shorts. So I did not understand at all.

My sisters and I were frustrated. If only there were shorts at Old Navy that were knee-length but made for small, skinny people!

Ah, but then we remembered that such shorts did exist...in the teenage boys' section.

We looked left. We looked right. We each snatched a pair of teenage boy shorts off a table and hurried with them to the dressing rooms.

Baby Sister took a pair of turquoise shorts, while I'd selected some that were gray-and-white striped. We tried them on. We looked good. We called our mother to come see.

We asked her what she thought without telling her where we had found the shorts.

She looked at me critically and said the fit was borderline. "Is there a bigger size?"

There was not.

"Maybe you could order some online," Mom said.

Uh... "If I get them, I'm going to get them now," I said.

"Mom, they're boy shorts," Baby Sister chimed in.

"Oh," Mom said. She took a closer look. After some clear deliberation, she said that if I liked them and felt comfortable, I should get them.

Here are my new shorts. I do feel a little sorry for depriving some teenage boy of the chance to own his very own gray-and-white striped shorts. But only a little.