The jeans, miraculously, fit perfectly. They hit my waist in the right place, they didn't squeeze across my ass to the point of creasing it, they didn't gap in the back the way low-rise pants are prone to do -- it was an altogether rare and mystical confluence of elements that usually compete to ruin a pair of pants.

Delighted, I admired the reflection in the mirror and vowed to buy them as soon as they passed the final test: could I see my feet?

That's when I cursed. That's when I snarled. That's when I looked down and saw nothing but the stubs of ten toes poking out from an expanse of blue cloth. That's when I checked the tag, saw that it indeed classified the length as "regular," and shook my fist in the air as the bubble of my good fortune burst and rained a disillusioned shopper's wrath upon a pile of discarded denim.

"Oh, fucking HELL," I ranted. "What the FUCK is fucking WRONG with these fucking things? Fuckpants."

A point of clarification: I am not criticizing the pants. I could never be angry at pants. No, my ire's aimed higher. Damn The Man, not the pants.

Somebody, somewhere, has changed the rules of the pants-purchasing game. This tyrannical Pants Man apparently decided that "regular" people are five-foot-eight, and he's forcing his craftsmen to make pants that are three inches too long for an actual regular person -- after all, the National Center for Height claims that 5'5" is taller than the average woman in the United States.

Okay, there is no National Center for Height. But this person seems to think that the average woman is just shorter than 5'4", which means that "regular length" ought not fit us as if we're wearing footie pajamas.

The jeans I'm wearing right now can't be worn with sneakers, because the cuffs get caught under my heel when I walk. Yet, inexplicably, they are classified as "short" by the good people at Old Navy. The statisticians in the country do not think I'm short, yet fucking Morgan Fairchild's Pants Man figures I am sufficiently wee to need a special designation on my trousers -- so-called short pants that, I might add, still bunch up a little around the ankle when they hit my shoes, so long are they.

I would think this is a labeling error, had I not tried on countless other pairs there of identical length on me. Its not just Old Navy, either; this crime against the average-of-stature is happening in factories, and therefore dressing rooms, across the country. Although I would never purchase a pair of jeans from Express, because the back pockets are so small they can make even the boniest, flattest of asses look like Colorado, I've often tried on their trousers and the average length is always too long -- longer than they should be even as longer cuts of pants are en vogue. They're ridiculously long. Can't-eve-wear-them-with-heels long. And naturally, because really expensive clothes are always made for the model-tall people of the world, any pair of designer jeans -- as I've learned from trying on pair upon pair of Seven For All Mankind pants and fruitlessly longing to plonk down my credit card in exchange for the right to take them home -- would require me to walk en pointe atop small blocks of wood to prevent the fabric from brushing the ground.

This criminal change in measurement comes with a variety of labels. At Old Navy, I am "short," whereas Express prefers to think of me as the very polite "petite." American Eagle and The Gap, however, want me and those of my ilk to feel as ridiculous as possible, so they call our pants "ankle length." The icing on that affront of a cake is that when I put them on, they extend well beyond my ankle, forcing me to wonder if I should consider purchasing what passes for Capri pants if I want something that hits my foot at the right spot.

Because, yes, it's a slippery slope: So-called ankle-length pants hit my heel, and all Capri pants graze my anklebone, stirring in any onlooker that really uncomfortable feeling of wondering if that poor loser in the too-short pants is aware that she needs to let out the hem. Eventually, shorts will be Capri-length and hot pants will hit me right at the knee. The day underwear begins creeping halfway down my thigh will be a dark one indeed.

Who gave these people the authority to decide that, at a height above the national average, I am small? Am I too short for pants? Is this some conspiracy on the part of tall people, so long forced into specialty stores to find garments that fit their towering frames? Are they taking back the pants by inching cufflines lower and lower until the rest of us are living like dwarves?

Five-foot-five isn't wee, Pants Man, you sadistic bastard. You and your braying flunky Fran Drescher can go straight to hell for peddling that point of view.

I want my trousers back, you son of a bitch.

Someone got here by searching for: britney spears being brave by getting naked Almost finished: with Kavalier and Clay, which means I can start picking through the pile of reading material that's grown in a corner of my bedroom. Watching: Not the special clip show of behind-the-scenes action from Oprah's 50th birthday show and all-star gala weekend. No sir. It's bad for my rage.