Growth Spurt?

Sometime last summer, with my 40th birthday looming, I decided it was high time to get those pesky cholesterol numbers under control.  I'd been working on my diet for some time, but those HDL readings were still too low and there was only one way to boost them (Tidd men worldwide shout in unison):  More exercise!

So after more than twenty years, and despite having sworn I never would, I started running again.  At first just a couple miles at a whack.  Then boosting up to four.  I'm now putting in up to six miles, or one lap around Central Park, a few times a week.

Now I don't know about my cholesterol, still waiting for that follow up appointment, but I sure have lost a few pounds.  In fact, while according to online BMI calculators I am still a tad overweight, just a pound or two, I have been, for the first time in my adulthood, "in range" on more than one extra skinny day.

You know.  Skinny days.  When you forget to drink water all day and become excessively dehydrated.  And got a haircut.  And trimmed your fingernails.

I can tell you that the first time that happened there was much rejoicing in the Tidd household, on the level of what Chaim Potok has long attributed to my Hasidic neighbors.  There was much singing and dancing and general cheerfulness.  Lachlan is still trying to figure out what all the hubbub was about, but nevertheless continues to voice his approval in the usual way:  “Again!  Again, again!”

The downside to weight loss is, of course, the cost of re-outfitting oneself.  With all my clothes looking loose and shlumpy, my Christmas list was straightforward.  Being bold, I asked for new trousers with a 32-inch waist, a size I have not required in several decades, and was delighted come Christmas morning to receive a new pair of JCrew’s “Vintage Slim” jeans.  Very nice.  I tried them on and found they were all I had dreamt of and more, with one exception.

They were too short.

And I mean way too short.  As in not fit for public viewing.  A showcase for bony ankles.  Flood city.  

A trip to the store confirmed it was not a problem with that particular pair.  I now had another inch of leg.  I was befuddled.  Where had this come from?   I have always worn 32-inch length trousers.  It was only my waist that expanded over time.  But now that my middle was snapping back better than a pair of Fruit-of-the-Loom tightie-whities, had my legs stretched out to compensate?

Of course not.  A trip to the height wall in Lachlan’s room confirmed I haven’t grown.  (Though to be clear I haven’t shrunk, either.  I’m still the tallest Tidd around, i.e. the tallest one I see on a daily basis.)

The answer to the “Mystery of the Missing Inch”, which if all goes well will soon be a reality TV show on ABC Family, became clear enough when I lined my new 32x32 trousers up with a pair of my older and more bagel-friendly 33x32s, also “Vintage Slims”.  While JCrew says both pairs are the same length, the 33s were, in fact, an inch longer.  How can this be, I ask?  And then it hit me. 

The length of 32 inches is a measure of the inseam, the inside of the leg, not the outside.  And the inseam of both pairs of jeans was... drum roll... exactly the same!  But when JCrew cuts an inch off the distance around the waist, reducing it from 33 to 32, they in their wisdom also cut an inch off the vertical distance from the waist to the beginning of the inseam at the bottom of the crotch.  (I realize a diagram would really help about now.) 

Bottom line:  there is an inch of difference but no way you can tell by looking at the label.  Eureka, Watson, you're a genius!  Why thank you, Holmes, it was elementree, really.

But, you are saying, couldn't he tell when he tried them on?  Weren't they, you know, a little snug?  Truth be told, the 32's were still comfortable despite the missing inch.  Why?  Well I’m not 100 percent sure but, since you are being so pushy about it, I have a hypothesis:  my ahem has shrunk along with my waist, and isn't as low to the ground.

That’s what Lachlan tells me, anyway.  It's not like I've now grown eyes in the back of my head too.  But that makes me think clothing manufacturers need to add a third metric to their sizing charts to clarify the issue.  Not sure what to call it.  Seat Circumference?  Total Butt Volume?

I don't know.  Never been too good at naming things (Sorry kids).  Maybe that's why I'm Watson.  I'll ask Sherlock what he thinks.

[PAUSE]

All I can get out of Sherlock is:  "Again!  Again, again!"