Why I Hate Shopping for Pants

Shopping for pants is akin to
visiting Satan in hell.

Today is the first day of August, and I have to go back to work on Monday. I will miss many of the freedoms of summer, including staying up late, and taking naps in the afternoon. Perhaps what I will miss most, though, is wearing whatever I want. I am not what you’d call a very formal person, so my summer outfits mostly consist of jeans or yoga pants and t-shirts. (I wore a skirt once this summer, but then regretted it because I chose a pair of wedge-heeled shoes to accompany it that made me feel like my feet were being bound in Ancient China.) So, lots of t-shirts and comfy pants. Now, my level of slovenliness may shock you, but many days I did not even fix my hair or put on makeup.

Unfortunately, my “summer casual” look is not going to cut it when I go back to work. I will have to dress nicely, and properly coif my hair and apply makeup, not only as a matter of personal pride, but also because we have a few people on staff who always dress well and look great all of the time, and if I end up having to stand next to one of them in the yearly faculty picture, then they will make me look even worse than I already would were I not to take the aforementioned steps to maximize my appearance. I might also have to resort to the arm trick I mentioned in my first post, because these girls are pretty thin, too.

My problem in being able to dress up nicely is that none of my clothes from last school year fit me anymore. This is a good thing, because I have lost weight, but a bad thing, in that I hate shopping for clothes. When I was the weight I wanted to be, back before being married to the world’s least-talkative (ex-)husband, I didn’t mind clothes shopping because I felt good about my appearance, and I actually liked the way I looked in many different types of outfits. Now, I find it to be a miracle that I ever felt that way, because I, like many women, am always comparing myself to other people, and, even when I am at a perfect weight, can always find something wrong with my appearance.

So, unfortunately, I am going to have to face these insecurities between now and Sunday night, and go shopping for some new clothes. Because I am a teacher, and I make, like $4, my parents have offered to assist in the monetary aspect of purchasing clothes. My mom is going to go shopping with me, because she has a good eye for what looks flattering and what is hideous, and she won’t lie to me. We will probably go to Macy’s, because some places that cater to a younger crowd don’t make clothes that I would consider appropriate for my job or flattering to my figure.

For example, I have bought clothes at Target and Old Navy, but a lot of their pants are “lowrise,” meaning that they barely come up over the top of your butt, and that you cannot use them to make yourself feel as though you don’t have a muffin top. You know what I’m talking about. I have this roll of fat on my lower stomach, and when I wear lowrise jeans or pants, it just hangs over the top, forming a Dunlop. (I borrow the word Dunlop from my brother, Devin, and my grandfather, Pops, as in, “My stomach done lopped over my belt.”) When I wear midrise pants, however, either the front of the jeans cover the entire muffin top, pushing it in and minimizing the pooch, or, in what is my opinion, the best situation, cutting right into the middle of the muffin top, pushing the bottom part down and out of sight, and just allowing a little of it to hang over the pants waistband. I like this effect best because it makes me feel as though my muffin top is gone, even though you have to wear a baggy shirt so no one can see it hanging a little over the top of your pants. My other problem with lowrise pants for work is that I cannot properly sit down without worrying that everyone can see my underwear. When you work with children between the ages of eight and ten, trust me, you should not wear anything in which any underwear could accidentally be visible, because they will notice it, and then they will talk about it and laugh at you.

With lowrise pants being a non-option for me, I have discovered Michael Kors pants, which are the best ever. Right now I have to shop in the plus-size section of Macy’s. and Michael Kors makes nice plus-size clothing that actually takes into account the fit and how flattering it is going to look on someone who is not the size of a typical runway model, or a fetus, which is what many women’s clothes appear they are designed to fit.

I think I am ready to go down a size in dress pants, and I can buy a few pair, and they will last all year without the hem coming out. When I bought Target pants a few years ago, the hem came out after a couple of months, and because I am lazy, I had to come up with an elaborate scheme involving masking tape to keep the hem looking nice, as I lack the initiative to spend time sewing pants after working all day, and I also lack the drive to take my pants to the dry cleaners to ask them to fix the hem. This year, because I hate going out shopping, I decided to try buying my new pants online. I went to macys.com and viewed their selection of Michael Kors plus-size pants, in which lovely women who actually looked like normal human beings were featured wearing the clothes, but whom the fashion industry deems “plus size models.” I love that I can see what the pants I am considering look like on a woman with an actual butt, rather than what they look like on someone who has a hip measurement of less than 31 inches.

I decided to move on over to the Michael Kors' website to see if there was a better selection, and, when I went to look for the plus-size clothing, I could not find it. Then I noticed there was a section called “special sizes,” so I clicked on that. The section featured women so thin that they looked like the last time they had a piece of pizza was 1994, but when I looked at the available sizes, plus sizes were listed. I don’t think the ol’ marketing folks at Michael Kors thought this through very well. It was like they were trying to keep it a secret that they made plus sizes in the first place, and, well, looking at all the skinny women while I am trying to decide if I need to purchase a size 14 or a size 16 pair of pants isn’t exactly good for the old ego. So, as a matter of principle, I cannot purchase pants from the Michael Kors online shop.

So, I will probably go out to Macy’s tomorrow, where I will try on clothes, including pants, and where I will probably become a bit despondent about the way I look in them. That’s okay, because, whenever I go out clothes shopping, I try to follow it up with a pleasant experience to make me feel better, like going to lunch, or going to dinner or something. My mom and I will probably go in the morning, and then go eat lunch so that, after finally purchasing my new clothes, I can enjoy a Willy’s burrito bowl and copious beverages from the Willy’s Coke Freestyle machine, after which I will hope the clothes still fit the next day.

Image courtesy of www.plussize.com.au