Hey Gen Z!

You’re going to have to pry the skinny jeans off my Millennial body. No, really, help me. Grandma needs help.

You don’t understand why I put these on because you’ve never worn pants that look cute with boots, sandals, and sneakers. From the looks of it, you’ll never understand. 

Here’s the thing: skinny jeans are casual but put together. They’re figure-flattering. My butt looks better in these than the expensive yoga pants I never use for yoga and only use for bending over to reach low items at the grocery store. In them, my ass is cute, lush, impressive, high. Like how I feel when I’m high on the incredible edibles that are now legal to buy. (You lucky kids have no idea what kinds of meandering conversations with old weirdos that our generation had to endure to get weed.)  

Yes, I agree with you about the high-waist being better than the pubis-bearing alternative, but skinny jeans can have that! Throwing out skinny jeans wholesale seems like a rush to judgment. Especially now that I’ve bought 12 pairs wholesale because 10 TikTokers deemed them cheugy, and thus once-treasures from Paige, Hudson, AG, and Rag & Bone were 80% off on Shopbop.

Wait, I guess you’re right. We should be wearing pants with clear plastic panels at the thighs that won’t at all fog up on a slightly humid day, leaving us with heat rash for days. We should easily slip on those saggy 80s acid-wash jeans that give even the most luscious curves pointy hips and a heart-shaped pancake ass. Or those bizarre jeans that have the denim from the knee down held up with little leg suspenders. I don’t know if your earnest, confident generation does sarcasm, but that’s it, by the way.

Sure, I’ll buy other pants to appease you and everyone else who insists that a woman of my not-that-old age should keep up with every trend. But I will probably wear skinny jeans for the rest of my life because, again, I am physically trapped inside them. These pants have become a part of my body, a second epidermis that is also inside of me like a denim tampon. Please help—the wound on my belly button is infected.

Until you get here, I’ll be prone on my bed, tugging at them and screaming. I’ve already tried jumping up and down as I pull, but it seems that only works to put on these fuckers.

Sigh. But not too big of a sigh—because I cannot fully inhale or exhale in these jeans. 

Hey, at least we can all agree that Gen X’s cargo pants are very dumb. Oh man, my baby cousin just told me that you like those?! I don’t understand you, kids.