How Hard Could It Be?

“You really should think about buying some new jeans.”, my wife told me a few days ago. That’s wife code for “ Your jeans make you look like you just got exhumed.”

“ Why? These still fit.” I argued.

“ They are wearing dark blue ones now. Yours are light blue. “ she said, in an apparent attempt to make the idea of shopping for clothes somewhat imperative.

“Who are ‘they’?” I asked.

“Well, you know…. normal people.” Well, that did it. Obviously, at the age of sixty-two, when I can’t remember to zip my pants until I feel a draft, I should become more concerned about peer pressure regarding my jeans.

I hate to shop for clothes. I have become quite inventive over the last few years in my efforts to avoid it completely. A couple of weeks ago I saw a photo of myself holding our older daughter at the age of approximately one year. ( Her, not me. ) The sport coat I was wearing in the photo is still in my closet. Shannon is thirty-two. After seeing the photo, I walked into my closet to try the sport coat on, and can you believe it had shrunk?! I guess if you keep clothes too long, they will shrink. I never knew that.

Anyway, back to the jeans. I agreed to drive to Jackson and look for some new jeans. I thought about asking my wife to go with me and help, but I figured “how hard could it be?” I drove by the mall, noticing Belk, Macy’s and Sears, but from looking at the storefronts I couldn’t tell whether there were any jeans inside or not, and not wanting to waste time, I decided to go to Walmart and look for a new watch instead. I still had the watch my parents gave me for high school graduation, and it told time just fine, but it was getting a little rusty, and green, hair-like fuzzy stuff was growing on the band, so I thought I would just upgrade to a watch that would look cool with the new jeans I was being tormented into buying.

I approached the watch counter and began looking at the array of choices. Honestly, they didn’t really look like watches. Well, some of them sort of looked like watches but most looked more like something Captain Kirk would hold up to his mouth and say “Beam me up, Scotty” into. One even had an antenna!

A young lady ( I think… it had an earring stuck through its eyebrow ) approached me saying, “May I help you sir?”

“Yes you may, young la…er…uh…. yes, you may.” I replied. “Are these watches?”
“Yes, they are.” He/she said, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a snicker.
“ Well, they don’t look like watches. Do they tell time?”

“Yes sir.” Another snicker. ( condescending little twirp )

“Well where are the hands? Does the thing TALK?” I asked, totally serious.

“I think it does talk but this isn’t my department. I’ll have to look at the instruction book.”

He/she pulled a piece of paper about one inch square out of the box and unfolded it to something the size of a roadmap. I began to look around for Allen Funt. This had to be Candid Camera.

After searching the instruction sheet for a language with which he/she was familiar, he/she finally informed me that the watch did not talk, but did have a chronograph, digital chronometer, chronophyle, stop watch, polygraph, hyper-link transponder and and wi-fi capabilities. It also took photographs, but not movies. I expressed concern about the lack of movie capabilities just to be a smarty, but she wasn’t fazed.

“Those are on aisle ten,” she replied and walked away, apparently returning to the Earring In Your Eyebrow Department. I decided my watch was just fine and returned to my car to give the mall another drive-by.

On the way there, I deduced that going home without a new pair of jeans would not be conducive to marital bliss. There was no use in avoiding the inevitable, so I elected to embrace the horror and actually pull into the mall parking lot and get out of the car. I tried Belk first. That’s where I bought my last jeans in 1987. I liked their selection then. Why try a risky new place?

I found the jeans department and was shocked to see that I had gone into the wrong store! Apparently, Goodwill had opened a new store in the mall. All the jeans had holes and shredded legs. Some even had holes in the seat. I could get the draft without forgetting to zip my pants! I thought times must really be hard. Usually, Goodwill won’t take jeans in this condition.

I was approached by another teenage creature of undetermined gender, this time with a rhinestone stud stuck through its tongue.

“May I help you, thir?” The tongue stud must have been new.

“Yes, I must have come into the wrong store. I’m looking for the jeans department at Belk. They had a nice selection of jeans there in 1987,” I said, pointing to mine.

“Thith ith Belk, thir, and theth are the jeanth.”

“OK, but I’m looking for the new, unused jeans. These must have been involved in an airplane crash or fell into one of your blenders in the appliance department.

“Theth ARE new, thir. Thith ith what they are wearing now.” he/she explained. I wondered if it was referring to the same “they” that my wife had mentioned earlier. The same “they” that a couple of hours ago were wearing dark blue jeans. No, probably a different “they”.

“Well, thanks anyway, “ I said. “ I need some that I could actually wear in public. My dad would have thrown these in the gully behind the house long ago,” I retorted and walked back to my car.

I had come to Jackson to spend some money and by golly, I wasn’t going home empty handed. I had been hearing about those new cell phones and I decided to go by a cell phone store and get me one.

“How hard could it be?” I thought.