Maria's Random Rants

There’s nothing like buying a new pair of jeans to force you to realize what a fat *ss you’ve become. You find yourself standing in front of the neatly folded piles of jeans for at least ten minutes before you even reach for a pair.

Skinny jeans, boot leg, slight flare, dark wash, acid rinse. So many choices but all you’re concerned with is what size you should be reaching for. You want to grab the 5/6 but realize that’s the size you wish you were, so you start to reach for a 7/8 but remember you haven’t been that size for a few years, so now you start looking for a 9/10 but it’s on the top shelf and you have to ask a salesperson to help you.

Now it feels like a small production because the salesperson has to use a ladder to get your jeans and you start to think, “What if I’m wrong? What if I’m actually an 11/12 now? ” You don’t want to have ask the salesperson for help twice because then you’ll be pegged as one of those women in denial about your size. So in your most nonchalant voice you say to him, “You know, while you’re up there do you mind grabbing an 11/12 for me?” while doing your best not to let on just how much it hurts you to admit that out loud.

Finally with six pairs of jeans tucked under my arm I head off to the dreaded dressing room, where I think women do more self reflection than trying on clothes. I mean, why is it that the lighting in those rooms reveal parts of your body in a way that you just never notice when you’re in front of your own bathroom mirror? You’d think a retail store would want to encourage purchases by using lighting that compliment the shapely figure of all women, not just the perfectly shaped ones. Try dimmer lights Abercrombie!

Note to self: Start an average to plus size woman’s coalition against the inventors of those terrible dressing room lights.

I’ve learned to avoid looking in the dressing room mirror until I’m completely dressed, but out of regretful curiosity that day, I peeked behind my shoulder just as I was sliding the jeans over my buttocks. What a bad idea. All I could think was, “What happened? Why does my butt look like that? It looks so…deflated? And when did it drop? It used to be so damn perky.’

By the time I left the third store empty handed I was tempted to walk into a store that sold those new jeans claiming to enhance your *ss. Of course, after all I’d already put myself through mentally I couldn’t envision walking up to the bored looking sales kid and asking him to point me in the direction of the butt lifting jeans.

*Sigh* One hour later, still no jeans, and all the kids and hubby are blast texting me. I’m having a mid life crisis and all they care about is what time we’re meeting for dinner.