Saturday, I sat down at the computer to look at pants. Pants for work, and initially for a birthday celebration for one of my kids next week. Couple of shirts. There was this big sale at this one company I buy clothes from. I'm kind of a one horse town; one food store, one clothes store. That's enough for me. Problem was, the pants were either long floppy polyester things, stiff blue jeans, or....white....jeans. I looked at other stores too, and same deal.Crap.Ok,so I decided, I can handle white pants,why not.
Problem is, there were so unbelievably many...can you say that...kinds of white pants and especially white jeans. I do not enjoy shopping. I enjoy palpating and figuring out Livers. enjoy aligning spines. I enjoy my kids and friends and clients. Taking photographs.I enjoy four footeds and nature. But naw, not shopping.
I tried, God knows. I tried hard to be enthusiastic with my children, especially in adolescence, bringing them places with their friends, me sitting and reading while they were 13 and pretending they were 'alone', while I kept watch out of the corner of my eye. In a few years, I was the official 'shopping ally' and worked hard to learn to attentively watch and listen and do all the 'Uh huh's and the "Oh, yeah, I can see that" stuff, holding the choices in my arms as the kid tried stuff on and then came out to endlessly discuss the merits, all of which I worked hard at.
I worked hard at pleasantly and happily walking here to there, examining interminably the choices. I once offered to get my adult kid black sandals for work,as their dog had, um, nibbled upon theirs. One hour. Yup. I mean, how many black sandals can there be???
I grew up in a time where I was brought to one WASPY store with my five brothers, told to stand still, and then clothing was selected for each kid. Oh, I had clothes. I had food. I had a place to live. And my clothes were scratchy kilt wool skirts almost, and to me, almost dragging on the floor they were so LONG.Horrible scratchy woolen button down sweaters. Not the most fashionable item even then. Loafers. Knee socks.
I truly thought life was going to be one long boring clothing experience, until I turned 15 and the world opened up - and I realized there were all kinds of clothes all over the nation. All over the world. Since the beginning of time. Blew me away. I was still not a clothes horse, and never would be, but I was so relieved.
Still, I stuck by jeans and T shirts and little biddy skirts you could make out of your old jeans, and down jackets in a nice brown so that you could sit on the floor and the dirt would not show. Dr. Scholls sandals in summer and winter, then with socks. You could walk on your toes, climb mountains,walk across deep puddles. Great. And, for some reason, green rubber boots. Man,they seemed so simple and manageable, and in those days, was a perfectly acceptable fashion non-statement.
As time went on, there were children to spend money on, but also suddenly interesting clothes places. Not locally then, but places that had 25 colors and each name of a color was something so obtuse you couldn't figure out how they got to that weird name. But clothing became more interesting, and before a lot of stores, Victoria's Secret, besides lots of underwear, had really interesting clothes that you could actually wear, even as a mother. And in those days, at least where I lived, mothers were supposed to be a bit under the radar with their clothing.
We once ordered me a velvet top and matching skirt for winter holidays, and for fun, got a couple of underwear.Normal nice underwear. The box was delivered to the house, and my then 2 and 3 year olds ran to rip open the box, a very exciting proposition regardless of the contents. Out was dragged the beautiful new top, the shirt, and then the oldest held up a pair of underwear that was remarkably....small. They held it up in the air between all of us and said "Mom, what happened to the BUTT?" Turned out they had sent me...a thong. 1991. My husband and I laughed so hard we fell over,and still laugh today.
So yesterday I am realizing I am too tired to go around to local places, which I would like to do, and I pull out catalogs to see if anything else is truly possible aside from this confusing array of white jeans, and no, it seems not. I examine them and the intricacies, nothing I would ever want to spend time doing you must know, and each white jean, believe it or not, seems very different from the other. I have no idea who all these people ARE who differentiate so carefully between white jeans.
I look at bigger photos online. I look at the views. I give up. I call the company.
This very nice person answers, and I ask if they can help me. I tell her what's up. She says, "Sure. Give me the first item number." So I do, and we both sit there talking about the number of pockets and cotton versus spandex proportions. Then the second. Then the third. They all have different words that would lead one to believe there is something significantly different about them. I can't see why.
We hone down the characteristics gradually. I say "These pants look looser than those." She says "Maybe it's just the size of the model wearing the pants and nothing intentional." Uh.
We finally get some differences, me thinking I have never in my life spent this much time thinking about clothing, and then she says "Remember if you put them in the dryer, they will get smaller." I say "I never put them in the dryer. They last longer if I hang them up to dry." She says "I know, I never do either, but sometimes my husband does, because he thinks he's being helpful with the laundry." I say "Oh,yeah, and then forget it, right? That's it for those." She says "Don't you know it! Kills me!" I say " Can you teach him to hang them up? I hang everything up. Now my husband hangs everything up. I told him his clothes will last longer and he won't have to iron." She says " Forget it, he'll never do that." WE laugh, and talk about pants that are loose enough to be comfortable but close fitting enough that you don't have 'elephant butt', and laugh some more.
And then we go on, talking about this and that for awhile, and I forget who she is and that she is at this company, and instead we are sitting together, invisible, far away, talking about weather and clothes and family and line-dried clothes and finally it's time to say goodbye, so we do. She says "Take care, and good luck with your pants!" I say " Thank you so much for your help. You have a nice day!" She says " You do too!"
And I go back to the computer, wishing I had more energy and it was a store down the way, which actually are all huge chain stores anyway, but still....and I pick one white jean that is so far distant from any jean of my youth you could hardly call both of them jeans, and I purchase it. Send the little message through the ethers. Send my money through the ethers too. Close down the computer. Check my phone with a message from the ethers.
I think about the woman sitting at work, laughing with me about young women and tight pants and what jeans were like long ago, laughing and talking over the ethers while I imagine her laundry room, and she imagines mine, and we laugh, voices moving through phone ethers, thinking of the very first phones and how magical and ridiculous they seemed, then how convenient, then how so many were certain they would ruin humankind. Then the fax machines. Wow. That was something. And now, we have so much stuff wandering through the electromagnetic ethers, surrounding the globe, infiltrating our genes, carrying conversations of laughing women, talking over jeans, of all things, and then on to another day.
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