Shopping for Blue Jeans

There are people who have 20, 30 or more pairs of blue jeans. How does that happen? I'm beginning to think that those people have 2, 3 or a couple more that actually fit them. Me? I have two. The last new pair I got, I tried on 8 to get a style that I liked. I remember once when I was a teenager, I tried on 16 pairs of jeans in Macy's Junior Department to find ONE that I liked. Today, I think I tried 12 at two different stores and came up with one pair of brown velour (I've heard the phrase "no-wale corduroy" once or twice in the past and if it really exists, that's what these are); maybe two others would, with minor alterations, have worked.

Maybe it is that I try things on. My favorite makeover show is TLC's What Not To Wear (it's the American version of the BBC show) and invariably the makeover ambush victim admits that they hate shopping, hate trying on clothes. Invariably, the secret to dressing well turns out to be trying on clothes -- and rejecting the ones that don't fit and look great.

Yet it is not only the Paris Hiltons of the world -- the trust fund brats with unlimited cash to spend and unlimited time to prance in and out of dressing rooms -- who claim to own 30 pairs of blue jeans. It must be a whole bunch of people who go to The Gap and Old Navy and those cheesy stores on 34th Street between 7th and 8th going into stores, finding a number they think is their size, and proceeding directly to the checkout counter.

Not me, not now, not ever.