JEANS 5

It was a nice sunny day, I've been cranking faster than usual on the laundry, and had no kid pickup duty today, so I gave myself a GO to spend the afternoon at TJ Maxx and Target. For some, this would be a miserable waste of their precious hours, but for me it is sheer heaven. Quietly and peacefully combing the racks for cool, new, cheap clothes relaxes and cheers me like a Valium and a glass of wine did for the protagonist in the Rolling Stones' "Mother's Little Helper." It is also easier on the system and does not produce unintentional coma.

A large smile was produced by me in the fitting room, as I dared to try on a size down in jeans again. Now this size I have not seen in so long I am not exactly sure when I dared to pick it up last. The 80s, for sure. They fit! But I didn't care for the heaviness of the fabric, and I did not purchase them, even though I would have liked to just to stare at the tag. Now granted, they were tight, but button + zipper closed without having to lie down or puncturing the bladder = WIN. It was nice.

My current favorite clothing line is Free People, and when I found one of their shirts on the rack at TJ, I went YOINK! and put in my cart, a cute, soft, and very very very thin purple and pink baseball type shirt with a wide neck. When I went to try it on, it became clear perhaps why it had made it from retail $78.00 at Nordstrom to $16.99 here. Oh, dear. It was so sheer and so thin that when I went to put it on, it had the very unflattering effect of making me look like a purple lump of braunschweiger. It was disturbing but I did get some humor out of its awfulness.

I passed on three pairs of gladiator sandals. I want em, but dammit the soles were so flat I would just be like FLAP FLAP FLAP and this would spoil the coolness of them. Most shoes are very very ugly.

I bought a sundress today. I am almost positive that the last time I had a sundress was when I was about six. I will probably wear a shirt under it or a sweater over it because I think women my age do not need to flap their damn arms all around. Or that arm blarb right by the armpit. No one needs to see that. I don't want my serious guns to intimidate anyone, anyway.

There was a British woman in the TJ dressing room that was asking the fitting room girl what she thought of all her outfits she was trying on. Now, if you are the employee, what on earth do you do in this situation? Are you totally truthful? There is just no way. I could be truthful, if the woman had looked me in the eye and said, "This is critical. Pull no punches. If it is bad, tell me and tell me why." But otherwise, I think I would have just picked out the nice things to say about each outfit [i.e. OH WHAT A LOVELY COLOR FOR SPRING! IT MAKES YOUR EYES LOOK...OPEN.] and omitted the not-so-flattering details [YOUR BREASTS LOOK LIKE TWO 15-POUND BOWLING BALLS IN THAT DRESS, AND NOT IN ANY KIND OF GOOD WAY, AND YOUR BACKFAT IS ROLLING OVER THE EDGE SO FAR THAT IT LOOKS LIKE A SCARF.] I'd make a great stylist, but my clients would have to have balls. And I don't mean that they should be men, although they could be. I would go to any lengths to find things to make them look great, but they would have to listen to me and not cry when I would say, "MICHELLE OBAMA, THAT DRESS LOOKS LIKE CURTAINS FROM 1961. THE COLOR FLATTERS ONLY THE DEAD. CHANGE!" Heh.

I had fun today.