A Eulogy for My Jeans

by Jeannette Benoit, 16, Canada

We shared the best of times together--my old jeans and I. I remember the day I got them. It was sometime in April of 1998. My mom took me shopping for jeans at Bootlegger, and I picked out five or six pairs to try on. I tried on a couple pairs that fit okay, but they were nothing special. Then I tried on a pair of Silver Tab blue jeans. They were slightly faded, button fly, with just the right amount of flare. I fell in love with them the moment I put them on! I didn't even bother trying on the other three pairs I had picked out, I just got that pair. They were a bit more expensive than the other jeans, but I assured my mom I would get her money's worth. And that was no lie!

One thing I liked a lot about these jeans was their length. They were a bit long, so they dragged on the ground a bit, but when I sat down they still covered most of my feet. I liked this because I hate wearing "flood pants," and that was what I usually got stuck with, since I was a fairly tall girl and what fit around my waist usually wasn't the proper length.

If there was one thing in my wardrobe that I "over-wore" it would have to be those jeans. Each time I took them out of the dryer I noticed they looked more and more faded and they were wearing thin, especially in the left knee and on the upper corners of the back pockets.

One day, near the end of August, my friend and I decided to go rollerblading to Bud Miller Park. On our way home that afternoon I tripped over a curb and landed on my hands and knees. Or, more appropriately, my hands and jeans. I swear, I was more concerned with the loony-sized tear in the left knee of my jeans than the monster-sized scrape on the palm of my hand! And, of course, the loony-sized hole didn't get any smaller. It just frayed and grew and grew until my entire knee stuck out every time I sat down. That didn’t matter to me, though; I still wore them. Sun or rain, wind or snow--it didn't matter--they were still my favourite! I even wore them on our big shopping trip to Edmonton, kneehole and all!

By the next year at that time they were wearing through right under the right back pocket, so I had mom do surgery on them (patch them up), because I couldn't wear them like that. That would just be cheeky! Mom did a really good job on the patch, and I wore them for another six months or so. They were holding out pretty well until one day my boyfriend--I won't name names or point fingers--tried to lift me up by one of my belt loops. Needless to say, it didn't work too well, which left me with another rip in my favourite jeans! The other back pocket and the crotch were also starting to wear out, so I decided to designate them my "around home/outdoor party" jeans.

One day, just this past summer, I decided to have a few friends out to our party spot for a bonfire. There is an old shed out there and it's easy to climb up onto it, but it's a bit harder to get down. You have to jump. It's a good eight or nine feet from the roof to the ground, and even though I was the only girl who dared to jump, I felt pretty confident because I had done it before when I was younger. I sat right on the edge and slid as far off as I could without falling off, then I jumped. Little did I know I had been sitting on the head of a nail that was caught on the patch under the right back pocket of my jeans. So when I jumped all I heard was a big "rip" and I felt a bit of a draft as I hit the ground. Not only did I "em-bare-ass" myself in front of my friends, but I also killed my favourite jeans. They were "beyond repair" my mom told me the next day when I told her what happened and asked if she'd patch them again. I guess she figured after two and a half years that I had finally gotten her money's worth!