Recently I was doing a bit of online Christmas shopping, and there on the Disney Store site I spied a pair of Haunted Mansion leggings that no one my age should even be glancing at. To be clear, there is no Mickey Mouse across the backside, or Tinkerbell Poufs dangling from the hips. They’re actually relatively subtle for a Disney clothing item, a simple grey legging with the black pattern of the Haunted Mansion wallpaper, which looks sort of classic 19^th-centuryish from a distance, but up-close reveals bits of monster and man-eating plants. It’s said people in love often do silly things. I stuck them in my cart and checked out before I could be sensible.

They were on sale, of course, or I wouldn’t even have considered them. Like my mother before me, I like to do Christmas big; also like my mother, I have always been a very serious deal hunter, to make sure I get maximum bang for my budget. Not to brag, but under my mother’s tutelage, I became so good at researching quality and price that I grew a magician’s gift for making $100 work like $1000. It’s a talent I’m particularly proud of because I know I wasn’t born with it, and had to develop it from scratch. When I was a child my mother took me to the clearance rack at the fabric store where she had to figure out how to take other customers’ rejects and create something pretty, and in doing so demonstrated her tricks to me. Oddly enough it was this parsimony that also sparked my interest in design, two gifts produced by one thin bank balance. I’m grateful I wasn’t born rich.

At last my Disney purchases arrived in a shipping box crunched in by rough handling, but luckily all was well inside. I marked out which items go to whom, but I didn’t have enough minutes to test whether my twitterpated introduction to Haunted Mansion leggings would lead to an actual first date, so the leggings were consigned to the “Do Later” pile on my dresser. By Saturday morning my sudden crush had cooled all the way to nothing, and the leggings had begun to look like a moment of stupidity. Still wrapped in plastic, they had nearly fallen all the way off my agenda, so I had already dressed when the package happened to catch my eye as I reached for my perfume. Nobody wants to dress twice, but I rolled my eyes, thinking to tick off a task, and hurriedly slipped into the leggings, just to quickly check the fit and get on with more important things.

AHHHHHH!

Angels beat their wings, choirs sang, and I began cavorting around the house in pants so comfortable it was like being naked without the embarrassing bits. Unfortunately, I had purchased them a size too big, and they are a little too lightweight for winter, but two minutes in I knew I would not be taking them off, maybe ever. I went downstairs to show my kids my fancy pants, and then I called my sister to tell her about my amazing find. She too is a fan of comfy pants, and got online to purchase a pair of her own. Disney should pay me commission.