Beyond help

There was another post that I planned to go up today. It'll come up tomorrow. Today I need to try to apologize.

See, I needed new jeans. I had 3 good pairs and one with a stain on one leg. That fourth pair I try not to wear too often. I asked Yummy to come help me pick out a couple of pairs. I ended up being kind of a jerk.

She suggested we try The Gap. In my mind The Gap is the Starbucks of jeans places. Let me correct that. In my mind pretty much every clothing store is the Starbucks of jeans places. Not just yuppy, but preppy. The clothing is over priced but identical to what you'd get at JC Penneys or Kmart except for the label. I said OK, but I must have twitched because she then suggested Old Navy. I have an objection to Old Navy based just on the commercials. A commercial almost never gets me to shop at a particular place, but they can convince me to never step foot in their store. Besides, I didn't know that Old Navy sold things other than fleece. But I said OK. I realized that I was being a jean snob and I should go into the store. I also resigned myself to Gap prices so I'll say nothing more about them.

In the store we start looking at styles. Do we want to go to the baggy pants section or the fitting pants section? Yummy showed me a picture of what was meant by baggy pants. I can make an effort to make sure my pants don't ride above my hip bone, but those pants were too low for me. It's not that the fashion derived from people trying to wear clothes that covered up their shoplifting so much as I like to keep my ass covered.

It wasn't long before someone asked to help us. My normal reaction is a polite brush off. Basically "I'm here to do some shopping, now shove off." They're sales people. I just assume they're trying to make a sale and never trust a word they say. It's much like how I never believe a waitress who flirts with me.
Yummy, however, told him what we were there for. I told him I was looking for stuff that didn't look like Dad had driven over it with the tractor. He picked out a couple of pairs of jeans to help figure out what size I wear these days. We got something a couple of inches longer than I have at the moment. What I have is long enough when I'm standing, but shows socks when I'm sitting. One pair was the standard faded jeans while the other looked filthy and was fraying at a couple of points.

I know that the filthy, damaged look is in fashion and has been for quite awhile. I just can't do it. It was just earlier that morning when we were talking about throwing out a shirt because it had similar damage along the collar. The fabric was the worn and faded blue that I'm used to, but the fibers weren't the color of the fabric or the fading blue dye. It was a kind of brownish green. Yummy insists it's the dye and I believe her. But it still looked remarkably like a pair of jeans that I was judging as if to say "well, I wore them to the field yesterday. Since they're already covered in dust and barn grime I might as well wear them to the field today. I'll have to remember to change before I hit the comic book store later." That's what I saw when I looked at the jeans. Jeans that I'd always feel needed to be thrown in the wash again. Jeans that needed to be replaced because they're wearing out.

Yummy and the sales guy also picked out a shirt that they liked. It was a button up off-white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a strap to hold them in place. I was just barely aware enough that this was how the shirt was supposed to look that I didn't undo the strap and roll down the sleeves. It was a flip of the coin, however. She said it looked hot on me, but I couldn't picture any time or event where I'd actually wear that shirt.

Yummy insisted that they looked good on me. She insisted that these were in style. I asked for her help and then insulted the stuff she picked out. I still believe she knew what she was doing to make me look good. But I got worked up and rude when they were presented to me.

We did get a couple of pairs of jeans. I'm wearing one to work today. I really do appreciate the help that Yummy provided and I'm sorry I was such an ass.