It’s not for weak hearted. Truly. It ranks right up there with bra fittings and trying on bathing suits in fluorescent lit fitting rooms after a winter of couching it and a Lent of sneaking Thin Mints. Shopping for the perfect pair of blue jeans will bring me to my knees. If they’re not so tight I can’t bend my knees. Or breathe. Or talk back to the salesman when he says I need a smaller size.
“Wheh uh hoo meeen smawLLER zize??”
“Trust me,” assured Chris. “They’ll stretch in less than an hour!”
“Gasp. Weally?”
Okay, let me back up a bit.
Last week, my daughter and I made a pilgrimage down to the big city and venture into Beautiful Persons Mall. I took more time picking out what to wear that morning than I did for my last trip to Vegas. No really. The Fashion Police will not let you into Beautiful Persons Mall unless you look the part. Three classic dresses, four pairs of jeans and one mini later, I settled on a swingy skirt (from last year’s trip to BPM) and layered a couple cutsie trendy Daughter-Approved tops.
When I picked up my daughter after school she, as predicted by my momdar, looked me over from head to toe and stopped at my flip flop clad feet. “Don’t worry—I have Italian heels in the car.”
“Oh good!” she exhaled as she buckled in and whipped a trendy top out of her mammoth purse. “And I have this top to change into instead of my theater class tee.” At this point I’d like to tell you I trained her well, but I’d be lying. She gets the fashionista credit.
During the drive, our optimism soared with the sunshine, spring flowers and songs worthy of mocking for 30 minutes straight. After scoring my favorite parking spot, we were flying high and ready to blend. I tossed my flip-flops into the backseat and stepped into my heels. “Aren’t you going to change your shirt?”
“Nah. I really don’t care what these people think of me. Besides, this shirt brings out the blue in my eyes.” And hence our tone for our Mommy-Daughter Day was set: Carefree and Courageous. Which is probably why we had the inclination to step foot into the Uber cool jeans store.
Where we would then find me peeking out from under the denim dressing room curtain, flayling on the floor trying to zip into the smaller size… gasping to Chris and Jonetta, (our new bff’s) “Har hu sha hur?”
“YES!” answered both salespeople, my daughter and a customer whose face I’d yet to see. And you know what? A warm VISA card and an hour later, they were right.
Lucky me.