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Blogs by Joseph W. Montaperto
THE PICNIC PANTS EPISODE 9/9/2020 3:59:30 PM
A string of miracles enable Joey Montaperto to enter the new school year feeling much more confident. School is about to start next week. With all the excitement that’s been going on - Espernaza, the kiss, the new mod shag afro she gave me - I’ve completely forgotten about it, the summer just whizzed by. Still, I’m feeling pretty good. I’m not plagued with that horrible sense of gnawing and dread, like I usually have going to this high school.
That is, not until I come home to find the black Hefty bags waiting for me on the living room floor. Yeah - those black trash bags. The ones full of recycled picnic pants (they look like pants that used to be a picnic table-cloth). Damn! All summer I’ve been wearing gym shorts and cut-offs, the picnic pants becoming a distant memory. Now that they’re upon me again, a distressed nausea is returning to my stomach.
I had come too far, worked too hard to have to wear these freaking pants again, I think to myself, cringing as my mother unties the knot of the bag. She reaches inside, and I shut my eyes tightly, waiting for the nightmare to pass.
“Joseph - look at these!” I hear my mother’s voice, as I reluctantly open my eyes again.
I cannot believe what I am seeing. To my utter shock and amazement - they aren’t picnic pants at all! No - they are - they are - black clothes! Not the color black, but black people clothes! How could this be? Had the bag somehow been switched, in some kind of macabre plot? As implausible as it seems, there are not one - I’m telling you - but two pairs of pleated double knit polyester pants! One baby blue, and the other rust-colored. As if that isn’t fortuitous enough, there are also two silkscreen shirts! And they fit perfectly! This becomes one of the great unsolved mysteries of all time. Is God himself speaking to me through these pants, I wonder?
A series of strange events occurs over the next few days, which seems to confirm that suspicion. First, my mother takes me on the annual pre-school trip to the shoe store, Thom McAnn’s. Now, usually she buys me Hush Puppies, or something of that nature, but this time she actually agrees - to my great astonishment - to buy the pair of black platform shoes that I’ve spied there!
The next miraculous event occurs when my mother inadvertently plows over my glasses with the gas-powered lawn mower, as I lay out in the backyard, catching some rays. Ordinarily, this would be a disaster of the highest magnitude, but in this auspicious time period, apparently anything is possible. Since I now can’t see much of anything (at least not anything far away), and school is starting in only a few more days, my parents and I have to make an unexpected visit to Dr. Pine, the local optician.
As I resignedly pore over his unsightly collection of black and brown-framed nerd glasses, I shudder at the eminent possibility that I will be forced to have to wear something even more atrocious than the hated Benjamins. A dark muck of despair coats my insides, until at the last second in the far left corner of the display cabinet, I spot these elaborate gold framed, tinted lens, Isaac Hayes-type pimp glasses. They’re about five times the size of the Benjamin Franklin’s, and the only pair of glasses in the shop which caters to black clientele. There’s no way my father’s gonna go for this though, never mind paying the somewhat exorbitant price.
But with nothing to lose, I decide to beg and grovel anyway. A few adamant nays to my request pass. Then in a dramatic turn of events, Dr. Pine initiates a secret huddle between himself and my parents. I have no idea what transpires in that meeting of the Holy Triumvirate, but a tense few moments later, I am the proud owner of those amazing pimp glasses! What in the heavens is going on?!
Lastly, to complete this wheel of good fortune, the next night I’m on my way to Cumberland Farms to buy a gallon of milk. When right there, on the sidewalk in front of me, lays a thick linked gold chain - with an Italian Horn! It appears to be brand new. It’s not even broken! I slip it around my neck and kiss the Italian Horn, thanking God profusely for all the recent blessings He has bestowed upon me. Boy, wait till Esperanza sees me again - she’s really going to be in love.
