2006-09-26
all i want is a pair of black jeans
I sit in the dressing room with four pairs of jeans: Boot Cut, Skinny Fit, Original Flare, Long and Lean.
None of them fit me.
Mama dragged me to the Gap (aka Crap) because, "They have so many styles."
Unfortunately, none of them are my style.
All I want is a pair of black jeans/pants/cords...something in a color besides blue. I've always rocked them: long before those TV commercials where Audrey Hepburn comes back from the dead and prances around to AC/DC.
I yank the jeans over my butt. When I bend over, you can see the whole world. Even worse: the hems don't reach the floor.
"Are you waiting for a flood?" Mama asks. She's not helping.
Every pair has the same problem: too big in the waist, too short for my legs. When Mama starts talking about tailors (no way am I letting some old man punch pins into me) I say, "Let's try another mall."
Normally, I can't stand Sunset Place, but the Falls doesn't even have a bookstore (What self-respecting mall doesn't sell those square little objects called books?) They took away the Virgin Megastore and now it's housing this freaky exhibit called Bodies.
"Come celebrate the wonder of the human form," says the poster outside the door, which features a half-dissected man with all his organs exposed like the board game Operation. You have to pay ten bucks to see a bunch of bug-eyed, plastic-coated cadavers that came from who knows where.
As I hustle past it, I get a whiff of something like cough medicine. It reminds me of the science lab at school. I move a little faster.
Hours later, I've counted 25 pairs of jeans in six dressing rooms where nobody wants to wait on you. The girls with the heavy bangs sit behind the cashier, laughing on the phone to their friends. It takes ten minutes just to make them open a "changing room." Their eyes follow me around, as if I'm going to steal those cheap plastic necklaces that remind me of teething rings.
"When you leave the changing room, take the clothes with you," the girl snaps.
"I'm comparing sizes!" I yell over the blare of their piped-in music, Norah Jones or some "retro" track by Hall and Oats.
She rolls her eyes at me.
That's it.
I storm out into the parking lot, where a clump of skater boys are sipping iced coffees and bouncing into traffic. Cars roll around, throbbing with bass. The sun burns at a death-ray voltage. I stare at the store windows, all decked out in diva coats and furry Sasquatch turtlenecks that I could never wear here, except on Christmas with the air-conditioning cranked down.
"Hey, girl," says a cutie with pants so low, I can see his plaid boxers. They're not the right size, but they're not the wrong size either.
I smile and he smiles back at me.
At least I found something that fits.
f-i-n at 9:58 a.m.