My Overall Impression

The internet sent me this picture. The internet knows better than anyone how long I've been looking for cute summer-weight overalls. And if they look this good on a tall, slim, elegant young woman, just imagine how good they'll look on me!

Just imagine!

In retrospect, I should have been suspicious from the name alone. Sexy Slim Thin Jeans Wide Leg Jumpsuit. I mean, that doesn't even make any sense. That's just a bunch of trending modifiers plucked at random by people who don't speak English. Hot Thigh Gap Brazilian Microbladed Boyfriend Suit would have been equally descriptive. Plus, the garment was cheap as hell. And you know what that means. That means a tiny young Asian person churns out a hundred of these every day for a packet of dried fish.

I knew that. I bought them anyway. I haven't been able to find the pair of overalls I've been looking for, not even in the pattern books. This looked like a winner. True, the size chart is in centimeters, which always make me look fat, but I punted a little--they ran from small to extra-large, so I went Medium. It should have worked.

I wasn't looking for anything snug. Basically, I like to be able to walk around inside my overalls, but still have them drape attractively, suggesting that I have a shape in there somewhere. These I can walk around inside of and invite the book club, too. Heck. I could have sex inside these overalls on the cross-town bus and nobody'd be the wiser.

And they don't just run wide, or, as the name suggests, thin slim jeans wide. They actively shoot out for the horizon just below the hip. I'd need to wear three pairs of jodhpurs to fill them out. Forget those skinny-ass weasels: I could trouser a fat pair of badgers in this thing.

I hate going through the rigmarole of returning things. It doesn't come up often because I buy so little online. I was just going to slog through the site for return instructions and decided to try them on one more time. And lo!

Why, I think I could just take these in at the side seams. Way in. And straighten out the part that would make my thighs look like giant pitas. What's that? There's a side zipper? I could stand these babies up and step into them without touching the fabric, but it needs a side zipper? Screw the zipper. I don't even need to take it out. I'll just fold it along the seam and sew it up, zipper and all. A few judicious snips and I'll have a matching duffel bag. Which is good, because I'll be needing a new place to stash the badgers.

A Fine, Fat Fellow

We were ushered into a spacious room for the press conference. A row of people stood in the back, holding hands and humming quietly. They were barely visible behind Corporation, who was even wider than anyone had imagined. He was wall-to-wall. A trim man in a suit and sunglasses was wedged in on one side of him, expressionless.

Corporation unfurled a pudgy hand and acknowledged our presence. "Please. Call me Corpo," he said. "Thank you all for coming."

He clasped his hands together and took a deep breath. "You can't imagine the pain I've endured all these years, with people denying my very humanity. But I'm just like you," he began, reaching behind himself and executing a delicate, common-man tug at his underwear. "I put my pants on one leg at a time."

Pants?

"Pants, airs, the electorate, the point is I'm putting something on. The point is I have feelings. I'm not a machine. I have dreams, I have assets, I have liabilities, I have workers all over the world. Some of those youngsters in Sri Lanka, my God--" Corpo paused briefly to gain control over his emotions--"bless their tiny little bones. They're worth a hundred of my workers in America. I mean it."

The man in the suit and sunglasses leaned over and whispered something in Corpo's ear.

"I'm just speaking literally, of course. All of my workers--hell, all of us--are utterly equal in my eyes. From the coal worker in West Virginia, to the shareholder, to my little buddies Credit Default Swap and Sammy Alito, we're all human, we all have a voice."

His own had begun to tremble. "They're like members of my own family. I swear, I couldn't love them any better. What would I do without them? I'll never know, fortunately; there are always more. And after the coal is gone, and the timber is cut down, and the shale

oil is extracted, and the surviving workers are taking their well-earned leisure with their black lung settlements or what-have-you, I'll still be here. Not for them, necessarily, but for their children." Overcome, Corpo reached into his pocket and mopped his nose with a damp Haitian.

But what will their children do? Say, in West Virginia. After the coal is gone and the mountaintops have been blasted into memory.

"Oh, the opportunities I have provided! Just think what the little scamps can do on a nice flat surface that they couldn't do before. Marbles. Lawn bowling. It's all good. Where the Lord closes a mine shaft he opens a trapdoor."

The row of people behind began to hum louder and sway back and forth. The music swelled. Corpo's pants swelled.

"And now, thanks to the highest court in the land, my rights have been protected. My God-given rights as an American."

Free speech?

"How quaint of you! That's been done. Every Tom, Dick and Harry has that. Even the ladies, the dear little chatterboxes! Where's the value? No, my friends, free speech is yesterday's news, now that Expensive Speech is the law of the land."

The man in the sunglasses turned and applied a little water with a turkey baster on the side of Corpo's face. The chorus behind burst into song. Corpo dabbed moisture from the corner of his eye and began to sway with the group.

"We shall overrun....some....daaaaay!"