This is why I cannot shop online
A couple of weeks ago I pulled my old wool royal blue pencil skirt out of the closet, and then I wore it to work and it looked terrible on me all day. It bags in the front and it bags in the back and the waistband itches and the zipper fell out when I was 23 and a dry cleaner on east 86th Street sewed it back in for two dollars. Yes, when did I buy the Sad Blue Skirt? In college, which was 30 years ago, from a thrift store, when the skirt was already at least 20 years old. So I wore a 50-year-old skirt to work the other day and was shocked to discover that it was tired. It needs a rest. It wants to go to the Old Skirts Home. The next day I was up in La Cumbre getting my watch repaired, and you can't get your watch repaired without walking past the J. Crew store. (You can, of course. You can avoid it completely. YOU can. I chose not to.) The J. Crew store was having a sale. Since Jackson was with me, I said, "Let's go in for a minute," and he said, "I'm going to stay out here on the bench," and I said, "Stay where I can see you," and then I went in and in the space of 45 seconds found four skirts that had started out in the $135 range and were now down in the $35 range. Because I was nervous about Jackson being alone on the sidewalk, I decided not to try any of them on, I just eyeballed the sizes and bought them.
As the cashier was handing me my new skirts in a bag, I said, "So, are these exchangeable, in case I have sizing issues?" and he said, "No," and I said to myself, "I'm about to buy four new skirts that are going to end up on eBay," and then I said to him, "Okay!" I took them home and they fit perfectly, but here's the thing:
As you can see, they're all pretending to be different sizes. I held them all up to me in the store, and then I held them up to each other to make sure they were they same, and then I brought them home and discovered that I had a 10, two 8s, and a 6. (I just threw the H&M skirt in there for fun, because I guess I'm also a size 12.) It reminded me of when my mom died and I tried on one of her dresses and it fit perfectly: it was a size 16. So thank God my new skirts all fit on my somewhere-between-size-6-and-size-16 body.
I'm not sure what my point is. J. Crew has magical skirts? No one knows what numbers mean anymore? My body is a wonderland? And skirts are just the half of it. I also have a man's head (since women's hats are always one-size-fits-a-cat), and I can reliably wear either a size 10, size 11, or size 12 shoe. Actually, I take that back. I have a pair of men's size 7 Ecco loafers in my closet. They look great with everything.
