This is why dress pants should be lined.

A few months ago I happened to find myself in an Ann Taylor store. I usually don't shop at Ann Taylor because her "model" body is much shorter and quite a bit curvier than my own body. But the posters promised a new fit! A new look! New pants!

So I caved, and tried on one of the new style of dress pants they are now offering. They fit! No extra fabric where I don't have hips, and the hems actually touched my heels, a good sign for the tall'ns like me.

The only teensy weensy problem with them is they aren't lined. Original sticker price on these babies was over a hunert bucks and to not have lining at that price?! Insane! But luckily they were being offered at some crazy steal of a deal to get people to try them, so I did. I plunged and bought my first pair of black dress pants sans lining [for winter] since Nam.

I wore them quite faithfully, too, through this fall.

Today I hopped a flight to Omaha in my snazzy not so new pants, where the temp when we landed was 9 and as I stepped off the plane all of the moisture in my skin went ffftttt into the air.

And by noon I knew why I would never buy unlined dress pants again.

Cause the wool? The lightweight, tropical wool [clearly shorn from Hawaiian sheep or something] that was so superior it simply didn't need a lining? That same wool? It hurts like a mother when the seams on the very tender insides of your thighs happen to rub your wintery dry skin.

Now I know what babies with chapped fannies feel like. 'Cept mine is the insides of my thighs, but whatever.

And Ann Taylor?

Line your pants, for Christsakes.

- H