Shopping With the Devil

Some Van Halen cover band out there should change the lyrics up one night and see how many puzzled looks they get.

So yeah, I don't like shopping for clothes. If the clothes had surprise video games sewn into the pockets I would probably like it a lot better. But as it stands right now, I've lost a lot of weight, it isn't Christmas, and I don't have a girlfriend, so I had to go shopping for clothes.

I went to this store called Kohl's. They're your standard department store, and apparently they're the flavor of the spending public around here right now, because that's all I heard. "OH I LOVE KOHL'S" they wailed, "YOU SHOULD BUY ALL YOUR CLOTHES THERE."

As luck would have it, we're in the middle of August, so all the Summer clothes were on clearance, because it makes perfect sense to discount all your warm weather clothing when there's two months of it left. I'm not complaining about being able to buy $40 shirts for $7, though. No, I have many other things to complain about instead.

Like clothing sizes. See, I wasn't exactly sure what size pants I wear now when I went into Kohl's, and now that I have been there twice I am still not sure. The lady told me they lost their measuring tape, and you would think that in a department store if they lost the measuring tape they would just walk over to where they sell the measuring tapes and get another one, but apparently it's this whole big thing so I didn't get to use one. So I grabbed up a bunch of different sizes of jeans that were on sale for $20 a pair. They're called Urban Pipeline, and I don't know if at my age I should be wearing anything with the word "Urban" on it, but $20.

They're pre-beaten. By that I mean they were placed in some sort of mechanized beating contraption, which then proceeded to beat the Holy Hell out of them for hours so that they would look like someone has been wearing them for years. So you save a little time in getting your jeans to that Goodwill look that's so popular amongst the urban youngsters nowadays.

Maybe I should just get some regular jeans, I thought. Regular old Levi's jeans were around $40 a pair. So it's basically half price to buy jeans someone has already beaten the sh!t out of for you. And I wanted some boot cut jeans, because I have taken a liking to boots, and regular jeans just scrunch up at the bottom over boots. Plus I am on a budget, but I needed some new clothes because I was getting tired of everyone asking me if I've been sick or something.

Anyway, I grabbed a few different sizes and headed to the dressing room. I hate the dressing room because I always think someone is behind that mirror taking pictures and I'm going to end up on the intenet photoshopped into some goatse-type deal. Don't Google that, seriously. I tried on two pairs of 32 jeans, a pair of 31 jeans, and two pairs of 30 jeans. The two pairs of 32 jeans varied wildly in size. One fit okay, and one I could cram my balled-up fist in it was so loose around the waist. The pair of 31s fit all right, but the legs and ass were so baggy that you could've probably gotten three or four more legs into them. I don't want to walk around looking like I'm crapping my pants all day long (just in the mornings) so those went into the DO NOT BUY pile. One of the 30s fit perfectly, and was boot cut to just the right amount, but had these feathery-looking patches on the back pockets that I didn't see when I picked them up and which made me think about Vito in that Sopranos episode so DO NOT BUY. The other 30 was too loose.

WHAT. THE HELL? So, am I correct in assuming that nowadays the sizes printed on pants are just arbitrary numbers which have no bearing whatsoever on an actual system of measurement? That they just eyeball each pair of jeans and say "Looks like a 32 to me. Look like a 32 to you? 32 it is, then." And slap that tag on the back?

Look, I've always sucked at numbers. But 32 inches is 32 inches, and that is sort of a hard and fast rule. There's really no leeway when it comes to units of measurement, otherwise we'd all be living in houses which look like Dali paintings. "Relaxed fit." That means if you buy a pair of jeans that say 32 on the tag, you are really buying size 34 or 36 jeans. They just put that number on there so you don't feel like a fatass.

I guess that's sort of like the way I tell people I am five feet nine inches tall, even though I am only just a little bit over five feet eight inches tall, because that way I don't feel like so much of a shrimp.

When I walked into Kohl's, I could pull the size 34 jeans I used to wear (and which were way tight) off at night without unbuckling them. I now own a pair of size 32 jeans I can do that with. I own another pair of 32s which fit okay, a little loose, but whatever. I took the third pair of 32s back for exchange because I made the mistake of picking out a different pair of 32s without trying them on when I didn't like the color and the beating pattern on the pair I did try on, and I'd assumed they'd be the same size 32 as the first pair since they were in the same stack but they weren't. They were a totally different size 32, which no amount of belt could hold up. I exchanged those for a pair of size 30 boot cut jeans which fit perfectly and don't have that feathery pattern all over the ass part. I will probably go to my grave not knowing what size jeans I really wear.

I ended up getting 6 shirts and 3 pairs of jeans for $100, which is not a bad deal at all. I had no such trouble with the shirts, by the way. Evidently shirts don't fall under the rules of the New Math.