Cyndi vs.The Gray Pants

*Note: This is a semi-dramatic recounting of actual events that occurred approximately 8 years ago. As my memory has faded over the years, some of this has been filled in by the best reality-based supplementation my little brain can offer.*

Cyndi glances up from her French book. Madame Martine and her en francais pupils fail to distract her from the rift in the cosmic vibrations of the small apartment bedroom. The bitter February Idaho wind howls outside the window punctuated by the stacatto shouts of inane co-eds engaging in yet another uber-flirty snow ball fight.
Across the room Heather sighs heavily from her cinder-block raised bed, her normally animated face as lifeless as TV static at 2am. It's the same expression she's worn all evening.
"Okay Heph, what's wrong?" Cyndi asks. Heph is short for heipher, a pet name they use to address eachother often.
"Nothing." Heather replies, glazed eyes passing over the same page for the twentieth time.
"Nothing, right. You've been looking at the same page for an hour."
"Oh?" She replies.
"Um, yeah. Now are you going to tell me what's up?"
"It's nothing."
"Awww, come on. You know I'm going to nag you till you tell me."
"I got a 90 on that stupid poli-sci paper I've been working on forever."
For Heather, overachiever extraordinaire, a 90 on a paper was somewhere near to skipping through the quad naked during a class break on a list of desirable occurrences. In fact, public nudity might have been vastly preferable to a sub standard grade.
"A 90. Wow. That's horrible." Cyndi replies.
Registering the note of sarcasm in her friend's voice, Heather testily sets her book down on the mattress. Her husky voice raises an octave, expressing her exasperation.
"That's an A minus. I've never had below an A in that class."
"How much is the paper worth?"
"A third of our grade. I'll never pull a straight 4.0 now."
Cyndi winces. "Sorry honey."
Heather drops back on the mattress, folding her perfectly shaped bronze legs at an unnatural angle, staring listlessly at the wall.
"Hmm," Cyndi muses. "What can we do to cheer you up?"
"It's no big deal," Heather replies.
"I could make you a taco salad."
"Nah, I already had a turkey sandwich."
"We could go up to campus and watch people fall." Cyndi says, snickering as she remembers the beefy jock they'd seen biff it on a patch of ice earlier that day. He'd risen quickly and done the standard frantic glance about to see if anyone had witnessed his spill. Someone had.
"Too cold."
"Well crap. That's about all I had. Isn't there anything I can do?" Heather shakes her head no but pauses abruptly, a crooked smile quirking the corner of her mouth into smile.
Cyndi swallows hard. She's seen this look before; it has never ended well for her.
Heather slides a sideways glance to her, only meeting her eyes at the last second.
"Well, you could try on my gray pants. That might help." They often traded shirts, but at 4 inches taller and 3 sizes larger, Cyndi had flatly refused to try on any of Heather's pants despite her eager insisting. Even a simpleton could do that math.
"No. Absolutely not. No m'am."
Heather's lower lip juts out in a mock pout. "Aww pleeeease? I thought you said you wanted to cheer me up."
"I do, but not by attempting to squeeze my fat ass into your pants."
Heather heaves a heart-breakingly heavy sigh and leans back dramatically. "Oh well. I guess I'll just have to be depressed then." She stares up at the ceiling. The game is far from over, and Heather is more than a worthy opponent. They know each other well. Cyndi desperately thinks of something, anything to offer as a last bid.
"Really baby, I'll do anything else. Just not the pants. How about a foot rub?" Heather ups the ante once more, judging by the last offer she's already won.
"You know I'd try on your pants if you asked me to," Heather replies slyly. True, yes. She would. Given, everything of Cyndi's she tried on always fit her better, grateful for Heathers's perfect curves instead of Cyndi's categorically flat butt and too long legs. But this fact did not matter. Reciprocity is key to the exchange and Heather's lawyer mind has the logic well in hand.
Cyndi sighs in defeat.
"Alright, where are they?"
"Yay!" Heather shouts exultingly, springing from the end of the bed with more energy than she's demonstrated all night, possibly all semester. She locates them quickly, her closet being color coded and sorted by item type, a stark contrast to Cyndi's mish mash of overlapping hangers and general closet entropy next door."Here they are!" she sings tossing the hanger onto Cyndi's bed.
Cyndi eyes the pants dubiously. They are shorter and smaller than she remembers. Might as well get it over with.
"Turn around," she instructs Heather, removing her jeans.
"As if," Heather replies.
Bending over, Cyndi removes the pants from the hanger and slips them over her feet. By the time the hips of the pants reach her thighs, the cuffs are already 3 inches above ankle level. A throaty guffaw shakes the air as the pants cease their ascent, refusing to clear Cyndi's hips.
"Well, that's as far as they go." Cyndi says, arms akimbo.
"Come on! You haven't even tried to get them on yet." Heather manages, catching her breath.
'For piss sakes," Cyndi sighs, eager for the humiliation to be over, even if she is glad to see her friend laughing again. She grabs the waistband and yanks it upward. The pants raise a further few inches above her ankle and manage to clear her hips. They are now firmly wedged everywhere they were not meant to go and will go no further. Cyndi notes that she could sooner morph into a giraffe upon command than be able to zip them.
Heather screams with laughter, tears streaming down her face. She is unable to catch her breath. Cyndi shifts on her feet, delicately trying to extract the fabric from it's uncomfortable lodgings, waiting for the laughter to subside.
"Are we done here?" she asks.
Heather gasps for air and coughs wiping tears away. "Oh fine, go ahead. You can take them off."
"Thank the gods." Cyndi mutters, pulling the pants downward. They refuse to move. Cyndi hops up and down and manages to get one leg out before promptly falling over sideways, narrowly missing the corner of the pressed wood dresser provided by the apartments. Someone thumps the ceiling below, incensed their Jance Kapp Perry song has been interrrupted by such an unceremonious crash.
The room has gone silent. Looking up from the floor, Cyndi sees her friend convulsing with laughter, silent now as her body shakes with uncontrolled mirth.
"Always glad to help," Cyndi says, extracting her other leg from the pants. "Are we feeling better now?"
Several moments pass before Heather is able to answer. "Yes," she finally manages, "much."
"So glad." Says Cyndi flopping on her bed and resuming her French studies.
"Are you sure you don't want to try on the black ones?" Heather suggests innocently, "I'm sure they'd fit better."
"I'm sooo not falling for that one." Cyndi replies tersely.
"Oh well" Heather replies. "It worth a shot."


There you go. Thanks again to Heather for the suggestion. Love you baby!

Cyndi

PS. And no, Heather, I will not try on any of your pants for old time's sake. : )