all signs point to the mall

last week i found myself running late to work with no clean pants to wear. i hadn't gotten around to washing the work clothes during the weekend, but my jeans were crunchy from the dryer and ready to go. (thank God for the lax dresscode). unfortunately, as i hopped around trying to get them on, i noticed not one, but TWO dime-sized yellow spots at mid-calf. ugh. damn bleach. never fear, all those years of fun with colored pencils paid off and i burnished them into jeany-looking spots. you can barely tell.

the next day, i didn't learn my lesson and spent my time watching buffy the vampire slayer on dvd. (hey, it's new to me, and i still can't believe i'm this hooked) it's dangerous having access to that many episodes at once. so i had to pull out the emergency pants.

these pants seem innocent enough, but they have a secret. a foray long ago into the world of cheap detergent left permanent traces of cleaner all over them. but they're only visible in daylight. kind of like at those blacklight parties where you can see whether people use the pour-on-top-of-clothes method versus the premix-detergent-in-with-water technique. under the joy of tungsten or fluorescent lights, i'm basking in unicolor, but in the daylight, i'm rocking a khaki/white-purple cow print. the dry cleaners didn't even know what to do about it and all i got back was a nice tag that said something to the fact that they'd given up. i just don't have the heart to throw out pants that are still good when the sun goes down.

it was cloudy and my shift only contains a few hours of daylight, so i went with the emergency pants. i only had to make it from the car into the building. but ugh. were those 14 blocks painful. of course i passed every single fashionista in the city and i even saw a guy couple look me up and down. the mortification.

couple all that with the fact that everything sort of hangs wrong since i lost a little chub, and it can only mean one thing: i need to go shopping.

i accept that. i'm just dreading it. don't get me wrong, i love shopping. but shopping with something in mind (i.e. work pants) is always the most daunting and fruitless mission. that and looking for a particular-purpose shoe. when you don't need them, they're screaming to you from the nonsale rack, and when you're on the hunt, they've all hibernated for the season.

don't worry; i'm going. sometime. i don't need three strikes to know i need to hit the dugout.