Some other clever titles about pants

I am lax in my book updates.  So I'm doing two at once.  Mostly because there really isn't much to say about these two books except to make fun of them, but then to make fun of them is to make fun of me for reading them, so I can't do that.  Yet some strange brown-nosing impulse drive from my school teacher-pleasing days makes me feel that I have to write a book report, so... guess I better.  

Speaking of book reports, wasn't that just the most awesome time of the year?  There's nothing better than watching all those poor high school rejects stand up in front of the room and create an even bigger black hole for their social lives to be sucked into.  I mean, either you do a bad job on this silly report and get a bad grade, or you do a good job, thus verifying your status as a complete and total loser.  

Wait, maybe that was just me.  Never mind.  Go back and read that entire last paragraph in the FIRST PERSON instead, thus applying all those concepts to me, because that's what I was.  I couldn't stand to get a bad grade, so I would inevitably write a good report, which of course made everyone realize I cared about my grades, so they would make fun of me for putting in any kind of effort.  That is, until my senior year of high school, where I enjoyed a great deal of freedom in all of my classes- and I conveniently hated all my teachers so I took advantage of it.  I wrote and said exactly what I felt like saying, and deliberately chose books and topics that would allow me to say and do wonderfully shocking things, such as:

-force Nate Payne to wear a giant foam dragon mask and chase Justin Baum around the room with a whip, thus landing Justin in a giant puddle of simulated raw sewage, where he had to remain until I was done with my report- it was over ten minutes long

-write sarcastic poems about love which proclaimed in all caps "SO IT BASICALLY SUCKS"- hey, poetic license allows variations in all forms of punctuation

-Actually, pretty much answer "it sucks" to pretty much any question asked me for all nine months

-skip class, eat lunch in forbidden rooms, break a hole in the wall to create a forbidden room, leave school early (and, waving jovially, rollerblade past the poor saps still in the classrooms staring out the window), park in the teachers' parking lot, skip more class, break GPA and credit-earning records anyway, and silence any mean cheerleader, jock, or general meanie who might be making fun of me with a directed stare 

-cheat my way through physics because I was the uglier of two girls in the class (the teacher was fixated on the pretty one)... okay, that was junior year

-end my book report by showing a beautifully rendered movie clip of the movie "based on" the book, then say, "Actually, that blows- in the book he struck out, crapped his pants, and then shot himself."  And then walk casually to my seat.  

Senior year was fun.

But not for these poor girls.  Senior year for them was a mess, but as the only thing that matters is SUMMERS WITH THE PANTS, it was breezed over in a sentence, mentioned in a graduation photo montage, and we are off to yet another eventful summer orchestrated by the magic of what by now must be some seriously smelly jeans.  Remember the no-washing rule?  I mean, it's really starting to create a visual for me.  The author constantly mentions all the inscriptions, puffy paints, embroideries, and stickers that are all over the pants to document the summer fun the girls are chronicling, but all that does is make me remember the mud, blood, and other bodily fluids that are collecting on these jeans.  Did I mention they are jeans?  Denim.  Do you know how many tiny little ridges there are for things to stick in denim?  Did you know that I once had a grass stain on one of my jeans' knees that lasted through three years and about a million washings, and only came out when we finally cut the legs off to create some shorts?  Yeah.  And there's a LOT of stuff that happens in these pants that warrant some scrubbing, seriously.  Shudder.

(Oh, by the way, did you notice that transition in the two paragraphs above?  Yeah, I was talking about my senior year and then went right into the book, since it's about their senior year- that's the sort of "smooth transition" that got my essays read aloud in class my senior year.  Seriously.  I don't know if those teachers were really that hard up for good material, or if they were just trying to suck up to me (they had reasons), but come on.  How could I not be sarcastic at stuff like that?  Really?  A transition?  Brilliant!  Bring me my Pulitzer!)

Again, back to the pants.  In the third book, the third summer of the by now disgustingly filthy pants, all four girls get jobs, one goes to be a camp counselor, three stay in town, two hate their jobs, all hate their parents, one takes an art class- nakie painting, shocker!, one agonizes over her ex-boyfriend, three get a boyfriend, one tries to win an art scholarship, one hates her sister, one's sister nearly dies, one severely neglects her boyfriend, one fights off a younger admirer, one's grandmother makes her life miserable, one's mother makes her life miserable, one's mother has a baby, one basically delivers her friend's mother's baby... these people are way too close.  If any of you had friends whose lives you were this involved with, well, I apologize for this, but FREAKS!  What is wrong with these girls that they're so interdependent that they basically consider themselves interchangeable for one another?  And what is wrong with these girls' mothers that they just go along with it?  Gee, my husband and my daughter are missing, here's a random 18-year-old girl, hey, why don't you come on in here?  No, I'm totally fine with it!  Can you see the head?  Oh, just ignore my vagina, how's that baby looking?  See any hair?  No, on the baby, silly.  

Oy.  This is getting scary.  And yes, of course, the pants are in the delivery room, conveniently worn by the kid who happened to be walking by and peeked in for a quick baby delivery.  Shudder.  Add that to the list of body fluids on the pants.

So, then, yeah... everybody meets at the beach for their going-to-college-life-will-never-be-the-same-again party, great weekend, love you, love you, love you, best friends forever, blah, blah, blah.

Fast forward a year to the beginning of the summer after college.  Oh, the horror, oh, the sadness, they can't all be in town for the official sending-of-the-pants ceremony.  But they've been sending them all year because they were in college anyway, so the absentee is forgiven.  The absentee is hiding because she gained the obligatory Freshman Fifteen and doesn't want her friends to see.  Sounds like these girls have a true understanding of friendship, eh?  Deliver my mom's kid, but I can't let you see my tubby belly.  Hm.  So anyway, two of the girls stay at their school to take summer classes, one goes on an archaeological dig in Turkey, one goes to theater camp, one spends way too much time naked.  Two get a boyfriend, two more of them lose their virginity, one has a pregnancy scare (thank Heaven there's at least SOMETHING realistic in one of these books), one has a love affair with a dirt floor- I'm not making that up, those words are actually in the book, and these pants just keep getting NASTIER!  One accidentally gets a lead role in a Shakespeare play- that sounds nice, one continues to hide from her friends, one realizes that her college friend just isn't the same as the rest of her pants-buddies- shocker, one breaks up with her boyfriend, one hides from her boyfriend, one forgets her boyfriend all together, one's boyfriend is married, one doesn't really like her boyfriend but figures it's about time they have sex anyway.  This is... lovely.  One's sister dates another's ex.  One's ex shows up.  One's ex disappears.  And shows back up.  And disappears again.  And just for good measure, shows back up again and disappears again.  

TIME FOR SPOILERS: if you're at all still interested in reading this, well, here's the end.  So don't read any further.  If, like me, you are staring at this book series in the same way that one would stare at, say, Jaws 15, the most unbelievably ridiculous and unnecessary sequel ever, well, here's the end.  (I swear, the first book had charm.)

And at last, the unthinkable happens- the pants, they are lost!  And not just lost, lost in Greece!  That seems about right.  So the girl with relatives in Greece jumps on a plane to find them.  That seems about right.  And the three friends show up at the airport to "surprise" and accompany her.  That seems about right.  Four sets of parents who let their daughters deliver their own children will naturally support a teenage couplafew thousand dollar mission across the world for a pair of pants.  Yep.  Seems about right.  And off they go, in search of their precious... putrid... pants.  

Luckily, the author was smart enough not to let the pants be found.  How else would she end it?  So the girls are sitting on the shore lamenting the loss of the pants.  It's the end of the pants.  "Maybe this is the end of us..." they sob.  

Oh, come ON!!!  Are you kidding me?!  Tell me, where on earth do these girls come from?  Are teenagers today so shallow that these are believable characters?  We've forever lost our gross, dirty, four-seasons out of style, thrift shop pants, so we should just give up on our entire lives of friendship?  Friendship that prompts us to stick our hands between our friend's mother's legs, stay up all night to watch each other cry, drive all night to see each other in plays, and spend thousands of dollars so that we can all go together to chase a $5 pair of PANTS?  Wait, maybe the friendship hinge on the pants!  Or maybe the lunacy did, because just as you are about to completely give up on humanity, the girls realize that it wasn't just the pants.  They love each other.  

Whew.  THAT was close.  And here I thought they might never speak again.  What a tragedy that would be.  

So they stare into the sea of blue, contemplating the blue of eternity, and realize that eternity's blue is that of a well-worn pair of pants.  Pants equals love.

I swear, that's the last line in the book.

Okay.  Now I've spent a lot of time bashing this book, and I think I'm done.  (If you read this far... you poor soul.  You know by now that I never say anything worthwhile!)  But I'm not quite done... my favorite British/American lost in translation synonym is the fact that "pants" in England means "underwear."  So... pretty much the whole set of books is really freakin' hilaaaaarious now.  Pants equals love.  You betcha.