shopping I just experienced both the best and worst clothes shopping trip in the span of two hours.

The best experience was jeans shopping. You read that right. It is possible to shop for jeans and not cry the whole time.

I was delighted to find that because of my weight loss, I can now move down another size in my jeans. I know exactly the style to buy that fits my freak body. Lee “Relaxed Straight Leg – At the Waist” medium length jeans are made for me.

Ladies, if you carry more weight on your bottom than on the top, try those. And don’t let the “straight leg” worry you. In reality, they’re more a boot cut, which is a better style for women shaped like us. You won’t get the dreaded peg leg look.

So I’m sifting through the wall of Lee jeans looking for my size and I can’t find them. Why? Because every other woman where I live is my size, apparently.

I take the style I want in a different size to the counter and ask the saleswoman to order my size in that exact cut, length and wash.

She enters the information in the register and determines that she can’t order the wash I want, dark stone, because it’s not available.

Poo.

She tells me she’ll try several different search methods to find them, but I’m sensing I’ll be out of luck the longer this process continues.

But then. Then! She says “Wait right here. I have one last place to check.” She returns a couple minutes later with my exact size, cut, and wash that I want, telling me there was a single pair in the back room.

Thank you, JCPenney’s Clarissa! You made my day.

High from my successful jeans shopping excursion, I went on the hunt for some summer tops. And then my world crumbled around me.

I hate shopping for tops because I dislike my arms and need something to accentuate my smallish waist, so I tend to stick with one style that is structured enough to lay well on the hip, give me shape and form and cover most of my beastly arms.

I found one such top after looking through hundreds. Hundreds, I tell you.

I try it on and love it immediately. But I notice it’s had its price tag ripped off. Why? Why, God, must you let me find the one top I love that will give me trouble at the register?

And trouble I got.

The saleswoman sees it’s missing its price tag and she looks at the manufacturer’s label, thinking she can look it up at the register.

She cannot.

Why?

Because, she says, “This isn’t ours.”

“What?”

“This isn’t our merchandise. We don’t sell this brand.”

“But I found it on a rack in the store.”

“But it’s not ours. Where did you get it?”

“You mean out of the hundreds of tops I looked at? Uh. How ‘bout over there in Kansas. I have no idea where I got it.”

She checks with another saleswoman, who agrees they cannot sell it to me because it’s not theirs.

BUT I FOUND IT IN YOUR STORE!!!

I am flabbergasted. It takes me months to find clothing that I like and that flatters me and I’m standing there holding the perfect garment and yet I cannot buy it.

I consider for a moment asking if the three of us can make up a reasonable price and just call it a day.

But they are not budging. They will not sell me the top.

I was so tired and disgusted by then, all I could ask was “How do I get out of here?”

They pointed the way out of the store that sells clothes you can’t buy and left in a huff.

Without the pretty turquoise, structured top with the lovely neck line.

Tell me, Boscovs salesladies. What are you going to do with that? Throw it out? Because you probably could have charged me a made-up price of eighty bucks, pocketed it between yourselves and I wouldn’t have said a word.

For now, I’ll have to keep wearing the crappy clothes I hate and think about the top that could have been.

Honestly. Have you ever heard of something so stupid?

At least I won the jeans war. And I didn’t cry once.

Stumble it!