Allow me to state for the record that two things that I enjoy are summer days and girls wearing sweatpants. I don’t mean a sweltering, hellish summer, and I don’t mean your grandma’s “running to the supermarket” sweatpants. I am speaking specifically here of cool, endless summer days and of sleek women in sleek velour sweatpants. Preferably baby blue with stripes down the side. The sweatpants, not the women.

The fashion seems to be to have some sort of message written across the backside of your sweatpants, sometimes a brand advertisement like “Gap”, but more regularly something sporty and collegiate like “GWU Swimming”. There is usually room for only a few letters, because anyone whose fundament can display something long like “Joe’s Pool Hall Sunflower Emporium” does not want to draw attention to that fact. This seems to me to perfectly reasonable and the natural order of things.

As luck would have it, these things converge regularly on the streets below my office here in Chinatown, when groups of college girls make their way to the MCI Center for some sort of sporting or music event, or more recently sporting and music events, unknowingly warming the secret inner recesses of my heart.

All of that changed last week.

I was walking through Chinatown on my lunch break and ahead of me I saw a woman walking along with an older man. From behind, he seemed to be wearing typical “father-wear” khakis and a collared shirt, while she was dressed in some sort of top and baby blue sweatpants with stripes down the side. Scripted across her derriere in wide block letters was the word “Paradise” which was, in this case, a fair and accurate assessment of the display.

Please understand that I look at everyone’s butt. I’m a tall guy and my gaze naturally falls a little low. It’s merely a happy coincidence that I naturally look at alot of chests and butts. I don’t leer, mind you. These things seem to present themselves to my field of vision. Men, women, whoever. If I know you, I have looked at your ass. You’re not getting any taller, and I’m not getting any shorter. Get used to it.

Anyway, I walked behind this pair for perhaps a block or so, enjoying the *ahem* “scenery”, when they stopped on the street and I passed by, sneaking a look at each of their faces. I correctly guessed his age, but I was way off on her’s. This girl whom I thought was in her early to mid-twenties was in reality much younger, closer to fifteen or sixteen. SIXTEEN!

In that instant, I was magically transformed from a guy innocently checking out some girl on the street into a tongue-wagging pervert, which ruined the experience for everyone involved.

Didn’t this father realize that his daughter had the word “Paradise” stretched across her ass?

Didn’t she know that there is an age limit on those pants?

That’s just wrong.

I am totally in favor of young people exploring their nascent sexuality in whatever way they see fit, but I don’t think that I should have to ask for three forms of ID before I check out some girl, so please don’t put me in that position.

Update: Big Congratulations go out to Shannon Stamey on her engagement to Matt in Bogota. Please choose a wedding dress from among our fine collection.