Pants Are My Nemesis

I very rarely experience success, so I should have know better than to get excited recently when after three torturous years of demoralizing auditions, I finally booked a commercial.  At this rate, I’m bringing in about $500 a year as an actor.  I think we can all agree that I’ve made it.

When my agent called to tell me the good news, I was elated for about 30 seconds.  This elation was quickly replaced by dread when I realized that booking a commercial means scheduling a fitting.  Scheduling a fitting means pants.  I hate pants.  I have so many problems with pants that I recently became anorexic.  As I walked into the fitting last Friday, I prayed that my anorexia had done the trick.  Like all of my efforts to do the right thing and be a functioning woman of 32, anorexia let me down as well.

A fitting is my worst nightmare.  It involves trying on cheap clothes in front of a group of strangers.  To make matters worse, my brother was in town, so I had spent the previous evening housing short ribs and chocolate lava cake.  Clearly I lack the wherewithal to make sacrifices for my craft.  Needless to say, the fitting was an epic fail.  As soon as I walked in, I was chastised for being obese.  I then tried on a litany of pants – each more devastatingly ill-fitting than the last.  As usual, they eventually just started wrapping pieces of cloth around my body and calling it an outfit.  I had been defeated. 

On Monday I was called in for a second fitting since the first had gone so horribly awry.  At this point I was reeling from being forced to attend so many pants events.  It was then that I reached a new level of embarrassment and desperation.  The production company was insisting that I am clearly grossly overweight yet seemingly unaware of my girth.  I had to submit my sizes before the fitting and I gave my weight, height and pant size.  It’s been many years since I’ve been forced to wear pants, so I had to dig through my wardrobe of discarded dreams and find the pants that I have since abandoned.  I concluded that I am an 8-10.  The production company disagreed, and sent my agent this email:

Just got some information from the stylist that I wanted to pass on…the fitting did not go well on Friday because Alison had herself as a size 8 on her size card, (also confirmed on the phone with the stylist prior to the fitting,) when in fact she is a size 16.  They did not have clothes that fit her because of this large discrepancy… 

Listen…we are all beautiful at any size.  BUT I AM NOT A SIZE 16 YOU FUCKING HORRIBLE WENCH!  I knew so little about this supposed pant size that I had to Google that shit.  Ya know who’s a size 16?!  ADELE!  In order to combat these lies, I started literally sexting my agent pictures of myself.  Here’s a Craigslist-style picture of me sans head and here’s a picture of Adele:

 

I mean…we’re basically twins.  In the interest of full disclosure, wardrobe did, in fact, put me in a pair of size 16 pants.  Because of my monstrous ass, I was able to keep these pants up if I didn’t walk or move in any other way.  I did not need to unbutton or unzip these pants to get them on or off.  I guess that means I’m a size 16?  The point here is that my heftiness – the same heftiness that has already ruined my love life and social life – has now insidiously seeped its way into my professional life of making $41.66 a month as an actor.  I wish I was dead.

In a stunning act of courage, I was able to turn this fucking pants nightmare around.  The commercial I was shooting required me to bend over, thereby exposing my naked asshole to everyone on set, if I were forced to wear the gargantuan size 16 pants that supposedly fit me.  I was not going to let myself be brutalized by pants any longer, so I turned to the friend who has never let me down.  Other than delicious Jack Daniels and decadent Marlboro Reds, I have had only one ally in the world – leggings.

As evidenced by the headless horseman picture of me above, I put on my tightest clothes on the day of my shoot and then proceeded to just walk around hoping that someone would notice me.  And someone did.  Eventually, I was vindicated and allowed to wear all my own clothes for the shoot.  Because of my dear friend, leggings, Project Pants ended up being a huge success.

It’s disheartening to think that even with my awkwardly low self-esteem and abysmal self-image, I’m still missing the mark on how horribly flabby others find me to be.  Ultimately, I still have no idea what size pants I wear and I hope to never have to encounter pants again.  They are trying to kill me.  They ruined my life and I think they should be eradicated from fashion forever.  In the meantime, two companies are still fighting about how fat I am and frankly, I’ve completely thrown in the towel on attractiveness as an option for me.  My self-esteem has plummeted to excruciating levels.  I guess the good news is we’re all gonna die someday.  With my luck, they’d end up having a closed casket because no one would be able to find a pair of pants that fit me.  Ugh…note to self: you want to be cremated.