A Story of Orange Pants

A friend and I have spent much of this morning at Starbucks, working on freelance projects, writing and designing. The wifi is free, and as long as we keep each other company, we remain motivated to wrestle with these acquired projects.

We pause occasionally, needing rest for our eyes and fingertips; we exchange stories.

This is a story about a pair of orange pants.

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With the current trend of rainbow denim, a pair of bright orange pant may seem hardly worth blogging about.

Until you remember that I have a fear of colour, and you understand that these pants are very orange.

We were in Dublin last May, husband and I,  honeymooning and adventuring all over the Irish city.

We stopped in an H&M on Grafton Street (because, strange though it may be, I've somehow visited an H&M in every European country I've ever traveled through) and once inside, I subtly mocked a pair of bright orange pants hanging on a rack by the open door. Husband saw this as an opportunity, and several days later, returning to Grafton street, he proposed an idea.

"Take this," he said, handing me a number of euros. "You buy something for me--anything you want-- and I will buy something for you."

Thinking himself inordinately clever, he purchased the very pair of pants at which i'd so recently scoffed. Their color so very vivid: Orange.

"Now you must wear them," he said teasingly. And I did. I wore them once, our whole trip. It happened to be our one day of exclusive tourist activity and we wandered from Gallway to the Cliffs of Moher, passing ruins and castles and a number of sheep. We took the majority of our honeymoon photographs that day. And all the while, I wore the orange pants.

--

This Sunday, I forwent gaudy green and donned the orange pants again for that certain Irish holiday.

We entered the full house bearing warm pies and friends shouted and shrieked as we walked through the welcoming door,  "You wore the orange pants!"

"I just won a bet, " A. told me, grinning, "she said you wouldn't wear them."

It seems to me, if you own something from Ireland--particularly a pair of terribly orange trousers--you must unearth them out at least once a year and wear them. St. Patrick's days shall have to do.