I’ve mentioned before how much I hate shopping, and up until recently I managed to put off shopping for jeans. Ten, yes 10, glorious years of never having to shop for jeans! But earlier in the week, when I did the laundry, I discovered that I had to retire my absolute last pair of my beloved blue jeans.

This is not a mere glitch in my life. This is a code blue, red alert, elephant-sized poop crisis in my world. I am the blue jean girl, always have been, always will, but I am very particular about the type of jeans I wear, and because Levi’s no longer makes my standard 512 Slim Fit jeans, I can no longer just waltz in the nearest department store and buy two or ten pairs of size 5 Long.

No, what this means is that I actually have to try on some jeans and decide on a replacement brand, style, and maybe even size. This means spending money that I don’t have on something that doesn’t really matter to me—clothes.

If it hadn’t been for a couple of moves and some house chores, I wouldn’t even be thinking about this. But I tore a pair during my first move, another pair during my second move, another pair while cleaning house, and yet another pair while washing them. That amounts to the four pairs of blue jeans I had left from a major shopping trip 10 years ago, all in the span of half a year, all with the same death wound—a large and lovely lateral rip in the lower left posterior. Makes me wonder for a moment if my butt is large and lopsided. Also makes me think, “What a waste!”

H.E. brought up a good point though. Considering that the jeans I buy usually cost about $40 and last me about 10 years, I really am only paying $4 per jean, per year. That made me feel better about the money part of this entire shopping necessity, but it didn’t change the fact that I still had to go shopping.

So I went to Gap today, and I tried on some jeans. And more jeans. And still more jeans.

H.E., who came along to be my emotional support and beast of burden, could see that I was getting frustrated and depressed with the whole ordeal. I hated the cut of this, the fabric of that, the color of this and that, and I was getting more and more irked about the fact that I would have to get new underwear, too, if I tried on any more jeans that insisted my waist was down at my non-existing hips. Hip huggers on a non-hip hipless wonder just don’t button fly. In fact, it is a tragedy.

H.E. called the girl over and asked, “You got any jeans that don’t show people’s pubic hair?”

The girl nodded wisely and smiled at me. “Not fond of the Britney Spears type jeans, are you?”

“God, no,” I said. “I’m very old fashioned. I like wearing underwear, and I like it not to show.”

She recommended the boot cut and the classic fit styles, and from that point on, I was much, much happier.

By the way, I bought two pairs, so my crisis has been successfully averted.

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