Assless Chicken...

“You know, I made a mistake, you actually do have an ass.”

So said Axel when he saw me in the tightest pants I’ve ever had to wear. I actually don’t have an ass but these pants were so tight that they must have manipulated my flesh enough to create the illusion that I had some back. I had lost my salsa costume on the subway (no, not the manitard) right before a show and had to run around frantically to find a pair. I ended up buying these tight-assed pants from Urban Outfitters that kind of flared out at the bottom-Maria said they gave me male camel toe. The girls collectively winced when they saw me walk into rehearsal and more so when I did the half split in warm-up. It wasn’t pretty.

I’ve actually narrowed down my lack of an ass as the source of many physical problems I experience. Of all my physical flaws, I think my asslessness might be the one that bugs me the most.

Case in point, my lack of an ass means that my pants have nothing to hang off of and are constantly slipping down. Now, this was okay back in the day when I was rocking the jailhouse sagging-pants-off-my-ass wannabe-thug look but I’m a little old for that now. I actually need my pants to stay up semi-respectfully. But because I have no ass I have to tighten my belt a lot more than another person would have to because I don’t have that physical “hook” to help hold my pants up. All I got is my belt. So what happens when your belt is too tight? Well, one it hurts like a mother especially by the middle of the day as your waist expands (my Mom says you’re always the lightest in the morning). So while I might be three holes from the belt tip at the start of the day, my stomach will start to get achy because of food in my stomach and my overly tight belt and I’ll loosen to two holes. But when I loosen my belt, my pants start to fall down and I start stepping on my jeans (which gets to my other physical flaw: short-assed legs). So while two holes is enough to give my stomach some relief and postpone a major case of indigestion and a nasty bathroom bomb, it also means I’m grabbing at my pants and hitching those shits up all day. In an hour, my stomach will start to feel better and I’ll be sick of grabbing at my jeans and stepping on my cuffs so I’ll get cocky and re-tighten back to three holes (“I got this…“). So while I can walk freely for a little bit, like clockwork, my stomach will start to get achy again in thirty minutes and I’ll feel my the food in my stomach curdling and the gas welling up again. That’s when I’ll start calculating where I am in the city with what I know to be the nearest, cleanest, accessible toilet. I’ll tough it out until I have to loosen my pants again and this horrible cycle will continue back and forth until the end of the day. You might say, what’s the big difference between the second hold and the third hole? Shouldn’t one or the other be ok? Or even just drilling a hole right in between? Here’s my theory, those people blessed with even semi-decent asses don’t have to calculate as scientifically whether their pants are too tight or too loose because their asses shoulder a significant amount of the pant-bearing load whereas mine is AWOL. Because I have no ass, I’m trapped in a constant war between too-tight or too-loose pants, there will never be a “just-right” adjustment no matter how many holes I drill in my plants or how carefully my pants are tailored because my ass is not helping the cause at all. For years I wondered why my stomach hurt so much and why I couldn’t keep my pants up and now, I think I understand. Its liberating.

Next time, the ass, salsa, squatting and quad muscles….