I’m unable to decide if these trousers are highly amusing or chic

8pm. My husband and I are running inexcusably late for a dinner party; he’s half-in, half-out of a pair of crumpled trousers in one bedroom, while I’m half-in, half-out of a barely-worn pair in another.

“You make the starter, while I do my mascara,” I shout.

“I’ll shave, while you iron my trousers,” he says, appearing in front of me and staring down at his legs in dismay.

“Iron your own trousers,” I say, “I’ve got my own trousers to worry about.”

He gives my trousers a funny look.

“Trousers?” he says.

“Yes,” I say, “culottes are trousers, they’re just cut full to resemble a skirt.”

8.20pm.

I’m in the kitchen, fully dressed.

“Definitely not my best effort,” he says, entering the kitchen and pointing down at his crumpled trousers.

“Definitely not mine either,” I say, grinding pepper into the starter, over by the sink.

He looks over my shoulder into the bowl of shellfish.

“Yeah,” he says, “they do look a bit sort of loose and flarey.”

“Loose and flarey?” I say, looking down at the shellfish, “what are you talking about?”

“Your trousers,” he says, “why, what were you talking about?”

“The starter,” I say.

8.45pm.

We’re in the car. I’m unable to decide whether these trousers are highly amusing or chic.

“The jury is out on these trousers,” I say.

“To be honest,” my husband says, changing gear, “I’ve never been keen on shallots [sic].”

11pm.

My husband is at the dinner table, telling a true story about testicular torsion. This story has been playing on his mind ever since my sister, a nurse, told it to him yesterday.

“What’s testicular torsion?” the men all ask with anxious expressions.

“It’s when a testicle rotates,” he says, “it twists the spermatic cord and the reduced blood flow causes instant pain- unbelievably severe and massive swelling. It happened to this man just as he was getting up from the sofa. He was wearing baggy tracksuit bottoms at the time.”

The host looks at my trousers.

“He just shot out of the sofa,” I say, “and didn’t have time to uncross his legs. One of his balls got left behind.”

“I don’t understand,” a woman says, “what you mean by left behind, exactly.”

My husband explains until everyone is quite satisfied.

“It can just happen,” my husband concludes, “when you make a sudden movement like that in loose trousers. One of his balls is like a balloon now, apparently.”

The host looks at my trousers again. I fear he is not the only one.

Perhaps my trousers have simply become a useful visual tool for imagining a left-behind testicle - a lone balloon - in tracksuit bottoms. I hope this is the case; I hope it is not the case that the grand jury is out on my trousers.

2am.

“Just out of interest,” the host says as I am walking towards the front door, “what’s with the pants? No offence, but do they have a name, like?”

I must answer quickly, before my husband says, “shallots.”

“Palazzo pants,” I say, with as much dignity and authority as anyone can muster after half a bottle of wine, when they fear their trousers are highly amusing.

2.01am.

The verdict is in: ”Sure they can call them what they like in Italy,” he says, “but we call those clown pants over here.”