(D)elta Burke pants.

first, my sincerest thanks for all the kind words from my readers (that title makes it sound like you’re such a crowd, right?) about my mother-in-law.  truly, having a community of people is never undervalued currency in my life.

now, let’s lighten things up around here.  it’s time to tell you about my Delta Burke pants.

some background information:

1. delta burke: for those of you who don’t know who delta burke is, let me tell you. delta ramona leah burke is a television actress. (would the proper verb be was? i mean really, where have we seen her lately except on the label of a department store item that you will soon learn about?) she is perhaps best known for her role as Suzanne Sugarbaker on the CBS sitcom Designing Women, which aired for about 7 years in the late 80’s-early 90’s.  a bunch of southern ladies + one african-american ex-convict character = hilarity.  i’ve seen just about every episode, and remember distinctly when dixie carter’s character, julia, chewed out a tax collector named Ray DON, and her eyes got all big and crazy.

delta burke in her suzanne sugarbaker heyday:

tell me that she doesn’t look all 80’s TV-Star who peaks and then devolves into movies of the week and salvages a career by starting an clothing company you can find exclusively at k-mart ala jaclyn smith?

2. in britain, pants = underwear.  so, for this story, pants means underwear.  interestingly, pants is also slang in the UK for screwing things up royally, like “he really pantsed that up”, which — as you will learn — is also not entirely an inappropriate sentiment for this story.  however, i’m an american, so in this story, underwear = underwear.  pants = underwear and underwear = underwear.  basically what i’m telling you is that everything = underwear (as it usually does in life, right)?

*       *       *       *      *

for the last two months, the boy and i have been spending our weekdays 6 hours away in grand junction with his mom during her radiation and chemo treatments.  on the weekends we come home for a few days, but this situation has entailed us keeping everything we need (clothes, food, computers, work) with us at all times.  we’ve been staying with relative of his mom during the surgery and for the first 4 weeks of treatment (6 weeks altogether), but it’s stressful to have people in your house for that long, so we decided to give them a break and stay in a hotel for the last two weeks.  we happened upon a lovely residence inn that had two-bedroom suites with kitchens that would be perfect for what we need, and it is close to the cancer center.  they also have snack and free happy hour, which bodes well for the local college students who are staying there because the college ran out of housing.

they also have a pool and jacuzzi.

now, when i am going to a place with a pool and jacuzzi, i ALWAYS remember my swimsuit, because packing my suitcase and taking a trip is out of the ordinary, and so i think about all the things i need.

unless you’ve been living out of a suitcase for two months.

guess who forgot their swimsuits? (i’ll give you three tries, and the first two don’t count).

no big deal, right?  we’ll just find a cheap swimsuit — since they’ll probably be on clearance this time of year — and call it a day, or just not go swimming. except, his sister was coming to hang out with us and absolutely wanted to go swimming, and she would have been by herself.

let me tell you this: there are NO swimsuits in western colorado in november.  none. zero. swimsuits? nyet. the only swimsuit we could find was $70 at a sporting good stores for, you know, actual swimmers.

plan b.

the boy had some shorts he could wear, so we decided that i could wear the tank top i have to run in, since it’s a swimsuit-y material, if i could just find some shorts, like cheap spandex bike shorts or something.  emphasis on the word cheap, because i want to go swimming, but not like $50 bad. store 1: nothing. store 2: nothing.  stores 3-6, nothing.  at store 6 there was a glimmer of hope with some flourescent volleyball booty-shorts on clearance, but they didn’t have my size.  at least the patterns were hideously ugly, though.  points for ugliness.

grand junction apparently is a desert for something other than just climate.

the boy even found some plaid swim trunks at old navy for $5 that we initially thought were hideous, but have kind of grown on us by now.  we had nearly given up on our little acquatic adventure when hope arrived as we were wandering around ross (dress for less!) waiting for troy’s sister to try on things, in the form of one Delta Burke, actress and apparent underwear apparel magnate.

let’s talk about this: are you seeing how far these things go up?  the picture frame actually cuts off the top of these pants (pants = underwear); i swear they extend about 2 more miles inches up to provide dual action underwear + blindfold purposes.

i’m not sure if that’s how they are supposed to be, but they might stretch that far up because these were 3 sizes too big.  yep. it’s what we call big-girl pants (see also: grandma panties). there are a few reasons for this: one, my choices were either extra-small or 3 sizes too big. yeah, not going to be prancing around in an extra-small anything.  two, these were the only shorts-like pants in the store.  if i’m going to be swimming around in not-a-swimsuit, it’s not going to be in lacy underwear cut up to there — you know what i’m talking about…there.

that’s how i found myself the proud reluctant wearer of $5 underwear from a forgotten 80’s actress, around the pool.   like, in front of actual people, with a steely glare for anyone who dare insult my ridiculous awesome swim-pseud.

no reason for shame, though, because these delta burke pants are going to SWEEP THE NATION, people.  in fact, it’ll be so popular, wearing 3 times too-big underwear, that the new “pull up your big girl pants” will be “hike up your Delta Burke pants.”. i’ll see to it.

don’t mess with me in my Delta Burke Pants.