Noooooooooo!

I was not what you'd call a cool kid. And I hated jeans. They were uncomfortable for me, and I hated how they gapped in the back of the waist.

At my high school, the cool kids were decided in elementary school, and the main criterion was one's designer jeans, or lack thereof. Sadly, I'm not even kidding a little bit. If you wore Guess jeans in the fifth grade, you would be accepted as a Prep in high school. It just occurred to me, though, that correlation might not ENTIRELY equal causation in this case - it might have at least a little to do with the income of one's parents too. Regardless, coolness was decided early. And I failed at it.

Up through third grade, I wore sweat suits. As in, matching sweatshirt and sweatpants. I liked the elastic waistband! But we moved and I started a new school, and I think that's when I finally started to make the switchover to jeans. I definitely remember my mom taking me jeans shopping at Kmart. The kids at my new school had a "poem" about that:

"Kmart, Kmart, that's your store/
You shop there because you're poor.
Low, low prices every day/
You don't even have to pay."

So by the time FIFTH grade rolled around, I wanted to be in on the Guess jeans trend too. Although I distinctly remember (and here comes the point of this post) thinking that if my jeans had no POCKETS, then they couldn't have LOGOS. And if they didn't have LOGOS, then no one could mock me for not wearing designer jeans. Good logic, right? I'm a smart one.

I eventually got mostly over this issue in high school, due to three factors.

1. I managed to get a pair or two of Calvin Klein jeans, which were the popular jeans when I was in high school.
2. I also had several pairs of Levi's, which were not as cool but were acceptable.
3. It was too late anyway, and no amount of designer clothing would keep the Preps from literally spitting on us between classes.

Fast forward to today, when my cool-ass self was perusing Catalog Spree, an app on my iPad. I love it because it reminds me of the mountains of catalogs my grandparents used to keep in a basket at their house. I used to spend tons of time there flipping idly through catalogs and dreaming of owning crazy things like a replica of the Hope Diamond necklace.

So, Catalog Spree. I'm looking at a women's clothing catalog that appears to have lots of options for people who don't want to COMPLETELY get off the fashion train, but who think Carrie Bradshaw was more than a little insane. And there're these jeans. That are supposed to make one look five pounds slimmer. And one of the selling points is that they have no back pockets, "for a sleeker look".

And inside my head, the witness of a thousand fashion faux pas screamed in horror. "Nooooooo," I want to tell these women. "That won't work! I've already tried it! Save yourselves!!!"



Disclaimer: My opinions are solely my own; they are not necessarily those of anyone else with whom I associate.