Desperately Seeking Sweatpants

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Mike was 27, dark, and Italian. He was wearing black lululemon Down Dawg crops and a tight lululemon Tech T. Mike’s a teacher in real life, but on weekends he has the greatest job on earth for a single man: Mike runs the changing room at lululemon. All day long he helps yogafied babes try on form-fitting clothes and assesses the results. He’s constantly saying things like “Try the white one” and “Try the four instead of the six.” We were the only guys in the changing room.

 “What’s your name?” Mike asked. I told him. Mike wrote my name on a wipe board on one of the rooms: my own personalized compartment.

I needed it. The first pair of pants I tried on were lightweight, light gray Sporto Widelegs. They were tight, so tight they ought to have been renamed. Are you familiar with Google Earth, and the way it uses satellites to zoom down on a neighborhood—right down to your front steps? Wearing the Sporto Wideleg was the fashion equivalent, with my crotch as the center of the map. It was possible to discern not only how many parking spaces I have in front of my house, but also whether they are cobbled or paved. All I could see when I looked in the mirror, frankly, was my penis. There was a Lycra-stitched nonchafing seam around the package zone that made my wasker look as if it were in a private museum. That was when I realized: Yoga clothes are now designed to be crotch-enhancing.

I stepped into the common area, crowded with half a dozen women, and called for my wife. “Pull up the shirt,” she said, “let me see the front.”

I did. “I think, a little tight, bad for my health,” I mumbled.

“That’s not too tight,” Mike said.

“They, um, look vulnerable,” Johanna said. “Turn around.”

“Bum looks good,” she said.

“Agh,” I said. This was exactly the kind of thing you don’t want your wife to say in public: It sounds as if she is reassuring your anxieties. I could hear snickering in the background. Or, to be more accurate, I thought I could hear snickering.

“She said your bum looks good,” Mike said.

“Agh.”

I rushed back into the changing room. I ripped off the Sportos and whipped on the Kung Fu pants, but they had the same problem. So did the Down Dawg crops. They were all package-enhancing.

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