The Toronto girl that stole my pants

The Toronto girl that stole my pants

 

By Sharon Weatherall

 

I can't remember her name but I remember she was pretty cool. She had long dark brown hair and she was attractive, or at least the guys at the park thought so. I just thought it was neat that she liked me and we were hanging out together - so that was even cooler. She was up for a week's holidays and staying at 'The Grove' - a trailer park that got really busy in the summer season but had a section for full time residents in park model homes like we had.

 

Our stay at The Grove was supposed to be temporary until my dad got a little more financially stable. He had just started a paving business with a partner and it was going ok. Whatever the reason, we ended up living in that trailer for about two and half years - including three summers when I was about 13 to 15 years old. It was an exciting introduction to puberty and different kinds of fun after having come from a small hick town. I met a lot of really interesting people both locally and from the city who came for weekends and holidays.


Hanging out at the park store where there were pinball, pop and cigarette machines was a happening place to be even though my mom didn't agree. She didn't like me going there but I did anyway – it was like a magnet. Smokes were like 50 cents a pack, pop was 25 cents and kept in a Coca – Cola cooler with ice and there were always plenty of cute guys to watch playing pinball. All my new friends were there and it was a great place to meet both locals and vacationers.

 

It was a time when I was just coming into my own funky fashion style but my tastes had always been a little off the wall. Hip-rider Levi and GWG bell bottoms were 'in' and clingy rib knit sweaters that made your boobs look bigger than they really were. The bigger the bell bottoms the better but only the flared part - from the knees up they were so tight I could hardly get them on my legs and believe me my legs were skinny! I could handle a sewing machine like nobody's business and I was a pro at taking in the legs an inch or so by following the curve of the inseam. It was insane but in those days it looked awesome. Then I would cut through the stitches of the outer seam from the knee down and to sew in a triangle insert - usually some weird colour like purple or just another piece of jean material so that the bell covered my feet and swished when I walked. Back then I didn't like to wear shoes and can still remember my Aunt Vera refusing to let me stay at her place unless I washed my feet before climbing into one of her beds.

 

That summer my 'fav' pants were a pair of GWG overalls I had bought with my own babysitting money and embroidered flowers on the bib along with the name 'Boardy Cose' in red floss in between the two brass GWG buttons. Everyone in the park got a chuckle out of that because they all knew Boardy as one of the old farmers who sat on a Main Street bench in the local town I grew up in. He was a roly-poly old guy always chewing a toothpick and I had never seen him in anything other than overalls so I thought it would be neat to put his name on mine. I’m not sure what he thought about it but he and his cronies likely got a chuckle when I went walking by with those pants on and a bandana around my head. Afterall, how many old guys got their name on a young girl's pants?

 

My favourite overalls were topped off with a wide leather belt that had a big buckle and rested low on my hips (what hips I had). I was a hip - hippy, even though hippy duds were on their way out and more trendy fashions were coming in like micro-miniskirts, block heels and corduroy fitted blazers I would get to before school started up again that fall. But during that summer I was feeling pretty much like a girl from Rolling Stone magazine and thought I was the envy of other chicks and I was for at least one......

 

So that's how I teamed up with the cool girl from Toronto. I met her at The Grove store and we became inseparable for a week walking everywhere together, swimming, smoking and fooling around with the guys. I ignored all my friends just to hang out with her. I can't remember too much about her personality but I know she was a bit more advanced than me when it came to guys - so she did most of the talking and I would listen, eager to hear about her city life.

 

When I took her home with me to the trailer my mom would ask 'who is this girl' and 'where did she come from' and 'why are you bringing her here'? I would try to explain how nice she was and how she was staying with an uncle down in the seasonal end of the park near but my mom didn't trust her or her uncle! All I knew was the local guys were paying special attention to me because of her and I thought she was my friend. I found out later it was never me she liked....it was my pants - she wanted those Boardy Cose overalls.

 

Near the end of the week when it was almost time for her to go back to Toronto she asked me "can I try your pants on - I just wanna see if you are the same size as me"? I didn't think they'd fit but I agreed to let her try them on and immediately wished I hadn't because they looked a lot better on her than they did on me. She had all the right curves in all the right places and I remember thinking - “those pants will never fit me the same". As I watched her turn this way and that in front of the mirror I regretted letting her put them on. Then she asked if she could wear them out to the store and walking. She was upset to be heading home the next day so for some stupid reason I said "Ok".

 

We hung out together for the whole evening until dark and then when it was time for me to go home I asked her to come back to my place and take the overalls off. She said she didn't have time because she was late and had to get back to her uncle’s trailer but that she would bring them to me before leaving in the morning. She was going to bring me her address at the same time so we could write and stay in touch. She assured me she was coming back to the park the next weekend so we could hang out again.

 

The last time I saw my Boardy Cose pants they were running off to the far end of the park filled with a much different butt than what they were used to. That girl didn't even turn to wave good-bye which gave me a sudden feeling of dread at the time, but I didn't realize until the next day that I had just been ripped off. In the morning I realized that girl was gone and so were my pants - I never saw them again.

 

It was a huge lesson I never forget and to this day I don't like to lend my things to anyone, especially my clothes for fear I won't get them back. Oh, I got over it eventually and bought another pair of GWG overalls but it was never the same - summer was over and so was the magic of those faded and well-worn pants. I had just handed them over to a total stranger, then watched her run away. When I think back about it now I know the girl likely had a plan to steal my overalls from the first time she saw them on me but it certainly wasn't something I had expected. I was just too trusting of people and wonder now if she stole anything from anyone else that week. 

 

So it was my first real experience with a ‘city kid’ - luckily they weren't all like that. Maybe she will read this someday and know I am talking about her. She could still have those pants with the flowers and Boardy Cose's name embroidered on them tucked away in a drawer somewhere, or maybe she gave them to her own daughter to wear and laughed when she told her the story of how she ripped me off to get them....

 

One thing for sure, after that I paid closer attention to my mom when she said she didn't think someone was honest. Momsy got the last laugh I guess because she didn't like the pants either.