Bewildering Blues

If nothing else, this post will demonstrate both my utter lack of fashion and just how far out of the loop I've been for at least a decade.

When the warm, summer days bid farewell few weeks ago, I found myself in a bit of a predicament.  All it took was one rainy, fifty-something degree Saturday for me to realize I was in trouble and facing the chilly autumn season naked from the waist down.  Over the past few months I managed to give away every single pair of jeans I owned because none of them fit, and I had yet to replace them.  I had a choice of either freezing in shorts or being over-dressed in work clothes for my trip to the grocery store that day. Given that regular leg shaving tends to directly correlate with the average outside temperature, my decision was obvious.  Plus I hate to be cold.

The time had finally come to face the inevitable: jeans shopping.  Since my August post I lost an additional four pounds, bringing the grand total to forty-two.  I'm not exactly sure how I managed to pull that off since I haven't worked out the last eight weeks (more on that in the next post), but I officially reached my goal weight and I was ready to face the dressing room mirror.  In fact, that turned out to be the easy part.

I stood in front of the massive jeans display like I just landed on foreign soil and didn't speak the language.  When the hell did buying a pair of jeans get so complicated?  I tried so hard to remember the last time I bought some and slowly arrived at the conclusion it had probably been roughly ten years. Pathetic, eh?  All I know is that last purchase, whenever it was, was a simple transaction: grab correct size off the rack, head to cashier, go home.  Jeans were simply, well, jeans.  

I stared at the full wall of denim before me and tried to make sense of it all. The display was designed like a giant spreadsheet, with banner headers announcing styles/cuts at the top and size ranges/rise ranges/length ranges filling the cells below.  To my dismay, none of the signs read plain, old jeans. I had no clue where to even start.  What the hell is a bootcut skinny mid-rise. Or a straight average low-rise?  Or a classic-rise skinny boyfriend?  That last one made me giggle.  But seriously, last time I bought jeans the size wasn't preceded by six other adjectives.  It made my head spin.

So, I did what I imagine any old, clueless, fashion-ignorant woman would do: I grabbed as many pairs as I could carry and headed to the dressing room. With all the different styles available, I wasn't even sure what size would fit.  I decided on an analytical approach and got busy trying on pair after pair.  I pulled a small tablet from my purse and took notes as I worked through the various options, checking off what I liked and scratching what I didn't, just hoping to end up with the formula for the perfect pair of jeans.

This should probably go without saying, but as lost as I was in this new-world jeans experience I dared to attempt it: c-section rolls and low-rise jeans do not mix.  It was downright embarrassing.  Even if I stood perfectly still, the roll slowly inched its way upward and right out the top.  It was ugly.  And I have to say, even without the mommy pouch I have no clue how any woman can wear them without constantly feeling like they will slide right down at any second.  

Start to finish, it took just under an hour to reach the checkout line with two pairs of jeans that were the right size, right style, right length, right rise, and right color for me, and I learned a ton of new vocabulary in the process.  I left feeling both educated and exhausted, but smugly satisfied with my size eight jeans in tow.