Friday, June 30, 2006

Shopping

It's official. I am old. I went to go shopping for clothes the other day and all the pants are now so low that they barely reach the top of my pelvic bone. Um..I feel three ways about this:

a) NO.
b) HELL no.
C) All of the above.

My shopping experiences over the past four years have all merged together in my brain to form one awful hellish experience that goes something like this.

I walk into the store and tell myself that I absolutely must, above all else, keep a positive frame of mind. I then proceed to go around the store and never have a problem finding a dozen or so articles of clothing that I like. I pick out all the things I'm going to try on in a size twelve. Which will most likely be too big but too big is more assuring than not getting it past my wide, flat, two dimensional ass. Seriously, it's like my body is stuck in a two dimensional world. When I gain weight I grow out the sides but my profile always looks the same. I'm like a wall. Strange.

I take said articles of clothing into the dressing room leaving the extras with the female employee that always seems miffed by my presence. In fact, these dressing room employees seem so annoyed that I usually say 'Hello', hand them my clothes and say "I'm sorry" right before I enter the dressing room. Once I get into the dressing room the same warning sentence scrolls through my head over and over, like the severe weather warnings on tv. "WARNING, FOR THE NEXT TEN SECONDS OF TIME WHILE YOU ARE NAKED IN THIS DRESSING ROOM, DO NOT..I REPEAT DO NOT.. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, LOOK IN THE MIRROR' Right. Yet, at some point between getting off my clothes and putting on the new ones I always manage to get a quick glimpse in the mirror of something, could be my calf, my elbow, and then suddenly, I can't look away. It's like road kill, I know it will be bad, I know it will be shocking, but I must see it. The next thing I know I am standing directly in front of the mirror, mouth open, staring at my pasty naked body in the dressing room mirror with fluorescent lights spraying over me. Oh. My. God. I didn't realize it was possible to have cellulite on your big toe, huh, that's nice. The seeing myself in the dressing room mirror naked part of the experience usually traumatizes me for about a year or so. When I manage to pry myself away from the mirror I put on the first pair of jeans. Too big. I end up exchanging all articles for sizes that are a wee bit smaller. Past angry dressing room lady and back into the horror story.

Now I put on a pair of jeans that are more my size. They pull up to my mid thigh without incident. Then they squeeze over the thigh and by the time they are at mid buttocks I am more than positive that they are not 'quite right for my build', as most people put it. By the time I finally pull them all the way up and the jeans reach the widest part of my hips and sit barely above my pelvic bone. The fly and button are wide open in such a manner that allows my lower stomach to hang out. Sweet. Needless to say that I will not be able to zipper these. I turn to look at my arse in the mirror and the top of my underwear is hanging out all over the place. It's less Jessica Simpson and more chick with plumber crack (Yes, I've tried the thong but I feel that I spend my entire life trying to get my underwear out of my ass, therefore, the last thing I want to do is shove it in). I take a deep breath and pull the pants off, my underwear usually come off right along with them because of the 'snug fit', and there I am again, naked in the dressing room mirror. This is right about when the worker girl comes over, knocks on the door and says 'Do you need another size?' What I want to say: "No, I need a therapist and a friggen pair of jeans that fit a woman and not a prepubescent girl". What I do say: "No thank you. Sorry". Yes, I am still apologizing.

I put my clothes back on, don't bother to try on the other five articles. I tell myself that these pants aren't made for ANYONE and that it's not just me. I leave the dressing room just in time to catch some 18-23 year old girl jumping out of the room next to mine in the 'cute jeans' I just tried on, with her 'cute ass' and she's bouncing all around saying to her friend "Aren't these cute?" To which her friend and I simultaneously reply "Yes". DOH! I finally get the remaining articles from hostile girl. Put the clothes back on the rack, leave the store. Go home, telling myself the entire way that I need to start exercising more. I run that evening for five minutes, get tired, get depressed and eat buffalo chicken. I refuse to return back to the stores for another six months or so. Am I the only one who experiences this nightmare? I have come to many conclusions and one of them is that it's official. I am old.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm going to let you in on what it's like to go shopping for jeans in Scottsdale - the "Beverly Hills of the desert". Pick up the cheapest jeans in the store (at $125), proceed to ask saleschick for a size 4 or 5... the saleschick will get a strange contorted look on her face, rummage through the existing pile, then proceed to go search for your size "in the back" because a size 4 or 5 in Scottsdale means you're a fatass and your freakishly large pair of jeans is stored in the back because everybody here wears size 0 or something in the negative numbers. This makes for a really crappy day, which is why I own 2 pairs of jeans and 700 shirts.

Thank you,
Jen

Anonymous said...

Deidre-

I hope that this isnt too stalker-esque since weve never met, but Charlie showed me your blog and I have to let you know that it's pretty fricking hilarious. Except the one about geocaching, I have to disagree with that one on principle, due to the fact that I bought Charlie a GPS unit for that exact purpose (I mean, its not like we're going to be backpacking across country anytime soon)......


-Cassie

Deidre said...

hey cassie! i don't think you are a stalker b/c you read my post...but the whole driving by my house at midnight thing is a little weird. haha, just kidding. i'm glad you posted a comment. i've heard so much about you that i feel like i know you. as for the geocaching thing. ah. oops.