The Story of the Purple Pants

I want to tell you a short little story. If you would like to smile, please read it. And guys, take notes.

Last week I went to the Dutch Megalopolis that is West Michigan. I was there with my whole school faculty for a conference, but I made a small detour to Hudsonville to hang out with the one and only Liz VanDrunen. We got dinner at a place called The Electric Cheetah (delish) and I wanted to change clothes before heading over there from Liz's house. I brought along my favorite miracle purple pants. These pants fit me so perfectly, they are like magic. No matter how the day feels in the fat/skinny department, the magic purple pants just happen to make whatever I have going on look good. These were purchased from H&M, on sale, for 13 bucks, and have lasted for over a year. Somehow I've worn them out to bars in a super cute way or with sweaters and boots for work in a teacher way. I can't explain it. It all just works. I meant it when I said magic pants, people!

So it was all the more tragic when, all of a sudden, as I zip up said pants, the zipper pull came off in my hand. I tried to reconnect it, but to no avail. The big bummer is they still fit like a dream, and it wouldn't really be worth it to repair the zipper because of how cheap they actually are. That 13 dollar price tag had to catch up to me at some point, and a cheap zipper is a cheap zipper. For some reason, I felt the need to inform Brian (who was back in Chicago) immediately of this occurrence. It went something like this, in text form: "Purple pants are broken :( :( :(" (See how that Advanced Writing course in college paid off? My texts are so eloquent!)

Brian responded with a text of sincere sympathy (which is the first sign of his sweetness, because he is the last person who would ever care about a pair of pants' shortened lifespan) and, after a compassionate message, another ":(" back. (Yeah, we both graduated college.) I thought that was the end of it, but was happy that I had a husband that actually cared how I felt about purple pants. I was satisfied. And kind of smitten all over again with this guy who cares about the stupid things I care about simply because I care about them.

But wait, there's more!

On the ride home from the conference, I hit a lot of traffic and ended up trudging into our apartment a tired and hot mess, listless and ready for a nap. Not only did Brian leave me half of his Kit Kat (major bonus points there) but when I went into my closet I found a neatly arranged little shopping bag. Since I've been doing the no-shopping-for-6-months-thing, this is an odd sight in my closet these days. It was from Zara, and neatly tucked inside of it was a cardigan sweater and, of course, a pair of plum-hued skinny pants. A replacement for the magic purple pants, compliments of my supercool man! He'd gone to 7 stores in the mall that afternoon trying to track down purple skinny pants and finally found ones at Zara because "wasn't that the place you said you always shopped at while you were in Spain" and because he is just that good.

And I needed to tell my blog about it, so that I remember.

Forget the purple pants. Brian, you're magic to me.