Enter Ms. Nancy Fancypants!

I'm a teacher! Luckily I don't dress like one. Well, I don't dress like one anymore. I used to be guilty of wearing "hideous" Christmas sweaters. I didn't realize they were hideous at the time, it was pointed out to me by both my dear friend Erin and a former student. So two years ago I made a clean break from the yearly sighting of the holiday sweaters right before Winter Break. Oh, and there was that Winnie the Pooh jacket that Erin again brought up recently. Again, that was shed several years ago. But I am proud to say I have never owned a jumper, themed blazer or anything with the alphabet or an apple on it.

Now, while I have never worn the traditional teacher garb, I also haven't been crazy fashion forward either. Oh I watch Project Runway and I flip though In Style magazine just to see the latest fashions, but I never owned any of those crazy expensive styles. I thought they were quite silly actually. Who would pay $238 for a pair of pants that have legs the size of a tepee?

Well as it turns out, I would. After they have been marked down like 20 times from our local fashion boutique. I had been eyeing these beautiful charcoal beauties for weeks. But $238? I am a public school teacher for cripes sake! That's a car payment. Price aside, they are totally impractical as well. I work with children, those pants need beautiful high heeled pointed toe shoes to pull off the package. I spend hours on my knees, at kid level. The knees alone in those pants were probably worth about $50. But then that fateful day happened earlier this fall. I passed the clearance rack and there they were. Marked down again and again and again and my $238 fantasy purchase was now $29. I snatched them up, ran in and tried them on. I discovered that they were about two miles too long. Alterations run $10. Phew, that took the price up to $39 but damn, I'm worth it. I threw caution to the wind and pulled out the cash. Those beauties were mine and I was going to do it. I waited while they pinned them up so as to be the right length for a shrimp boat like myself and picked them up exactly one week later when they were just right. I brought them home, hung them in my closet and planned the day I would wear them in all their glory. That was in October.

I have been looking at those amazing pants hanging in my closet for almost 7 months now. It never seems like the right time to wear them. They are too fancy, they are too long, they are too big. It was just never the right day to wear them. Until today. I have been sitting on an interview committee for the past two days interviewing prospective candidates for our 4th and 6th grade openings. As I was looking through the closet last night I came upon my beautiful, beautiful pants. Yes, today would be the day. And so it was. I found the perfect top and the perfect shoes and I put the whole thing together. As it turns out, huge legged pants are kind of strange to wear. At first, I was concerned that I couldn't really see my feet. This is a hazard of having tiny doll feet (again a term given by Erin). They don't exactly show up under boot cut jeans, let alone full blown crazy pants. It was like a miniature mansion for my shoes under there.

However, for the first time in a long time, I felt like I looked pretty damn good. I understood why people wear $238 pants. They made me feel better looking. Was I? No, hell no, it was the pants. I think they were my own version of a cape. I felt like a super hero! Fashion girl. So, will I wear them again? Damn straight I will. I think I'll pull them out on those days when I need a little bit of the magic pants! Everyone needs a little magic sometimes.