Bell-Bottom Blues

Her glasses had large round lenses and were framed of white-gold wire. The glasses accessorized her headband, leather choker, and long hair parted down the middle. She wore bell-bottoms and tank tops and carried fringed suede purses. The bell-bottoms were too long. They dragged the ground. The hems quickly became filthy. There was a big bunch of space in those pants – were elves and fairies perhaps using them for miniscule tents? Wearers would frequently check the bell-bottom bottoms for wildlife and such.

In Home Economics class they tried to teach sewing. The cool seamers sewed silky, slinky dresses like Sissy Spacek’s prom outfit in the film Carrie (before fundamentalist mother Margaret impaled her with knives and ruined the dress too). Some created ugly hip-covering polyester pantsuits. She decided to make bell-bottoms. The pattern design would allegedly create hip-hugging, navel-showing bell-bottoms, the type with the super snug thigh-cut and huge flared bells. She chose the material: navy cotton with orange and yellow paisley designs. 

She discovered that she hated to sew: that it might drive her insane. Sewing seemed worse than clarinet lessons. She hated her Sew Job; her Blow Job seemed not-so-bad by comparison. She hated that sewing machine with a passion: it seemed a Rube Goldberg-esque nightmare. She could barely thread it: it was dangerous when the needle went vigorously up and down, up and down, a bad-ass puncture machine.

She cut the cloth by pattern. The pattern paper was weird looking and seemed to have hieroglyphics printed on it. She sewed the pieces of cloth together. As if that was not difficult enough, it was necessary to create darts and hems. Nit picky! Pants resulted. 

Bell-bottom project complete, she tried them on. Not bad. They fit. They may have been a bit tight, except of course for the bell part. They looked okay. 

She wore her fabulous new bell-bottoms on a date. They fell apart while making out with a Hanley in a back seat. The Hanleys were Baldwin-esque, several outgoing brothers who looked quite similar. Hers was named John. 

She and John kissed and hugged and fumbled in the back seat. Testosterone and estrogen fought cartoon fights for niches and goads. Her pants were literally falling apart at the seams. 
"Look what you did! You broke my pants!"
"What? This has never happened to me before!"

She became a girl with a reputation. What a kook! Her family is weird too. They whispered it and wrote it on bathroom walls. The shame, the shame.

She began a wild, spur-of-the-moment kind of life. She could not seem to go in for the long haul, having quit her woodwind Blow Job and unraveled Sew Job. She had no car or driver’s license.  What ever would become of her?

Sew-Rite to Open Brassiere Production Facility … Apply at 666 Main St ... she read, her screams becoming legend, as she hit the road.

Local Girl Goes Missing: ‘She’s a Smart Girl and Musical Too’ States Family.

No seamstresses were harmed in the creation of this story.