The internet sent me this picture. The internet knows better than anyone how long I’ve been looking for cute summer-weight overalls. And if they look this good on a tall, slim, elegant young woman, just imagine how good they’ll look on me!

Just imagine!

In retrospect, I should have been suspicious from the name alone. Sexy Slim Thin Jeans Wide Leg Jumpsuit. I mean, that doesn’t even make any sense. That’s just a bunch of trending modifiers plucked at random by people who don’t speak English. Hot Thigh Gap Brazilian Microbladed Boyfriend Suit would have been equally descriptive. Plus, the garment was cheap as hell. And you know what that means. That means a tiny young Asian person churns out a hundred of these every day for a packet of dried fish.

I knew that. I bought them anyway. I haven’t been able to find the pair of overalls I’ve been looking for, not even in the pattern books. This looked like a winner. True, the size chart is in centimeters, which always make me look fat, but I punted a little–they ran from small to extra-large, so I went Medium. It should have worked.

I wasn’t looking for anything snug. Basically, I like to be able to walk around inside my overalls, but still have them drape attractively, suggesting that I have a shape in there somewhere. These I can walk around inside of and invite the book club, too. Heck. I could have sex inside these overalls on the cross-town bus and nobody’d be the wiser.

And they don’t just run wide, or, as the name suggests, thin slim jeans wide. They actively shoot out for the horizon just below the hip. I’d need to wear three pairs of jodhpurs to fill them out. Forget those skinny-ass weasels: I could trouser a fat pair of badgers in this thing.

I hate going through the rigmarole of returning things. It doesn’t come up often because I buy so little online. I was just going to slog through the site for return instructions and decided to try them on one more time. And lo!

Why, I think I could just take these in at the side seams. Way in. And straighten out the part that would make my thighs look like giant pitas. What’s that? There’s a side zipper? I could stand these babies up and step into them without touching the fabric, but it needs a side zipper? Screw the zipper. I don’t even need to take it out. I’ll just fold it along the seam and sew it up, zipper and all. A few judicious snips and I’ll have a matching duffel bag. Which is good, because I’ll be needing a new place to stash the badgers.