I had a very strange experience while shopping for jeans the other day. First of all, let me say that the last time I went shopping for...well, any kind of clothing for myself...was right after Alexa was born. And I'm pretty sure my mom bought me the jeans I got then. Anyway, fast forward three years. Those post-Alexa jeans are too short (who would have thought, right?), so now it's cold out and I don't have any jeans that fit. My first disappointment was walking into the store and realizing that they don't have a section for 'I just stopped breastfeeding and immediately gained 5-10 pounds'. What the hell. OK, so obviously I need to change my approach. That's OK, I can adapt...or so I thought. It took me about 10 minutes to find a pair of jeans that were not labeled "skinny". I'm sorry, what? I mean, I'm not completely out of it, I knew about skinny jeans. I was just unaware of the sheer quantity of them and the complete lack of anything else! In one store I was in, they not only had skinny jeans, they had "super skinny" jeans. Who wears those? I'm serious. Who is their target marketing group? Because I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say that 98% of women are not shaped like 9 year old boys, and therefore, would look horrible in skinny (and especially super skinny) jeans. I know, there is always that group of outliers. That strange group of women who's thighs don't rub together. And trust me, I'm kind of jealous of the lack of chaffing that you experience. But for the large majority of us, we need real jeans that fit real women. And I don't mean skinny jeans that are labeled "curvy" with a "mid rise waist and roomy through the hip and thigh". Skinny jeans with a curvy fit is an oxymoron. Speaking of oxymorons... skinny jeans in any size above a 4 is an oxymoron also. I know, I know. There are some super tall girls who wear larger sizes and yet are proportioned so that skinny jeans actually look really good on them. Now before you start thinking 'Oh yeah, that is totally me. I look fantastic in my skinny jeans!', if you are shorter than 5'9'', it's not you. Go ahead and absorb that fact and then go buy yourself some new pants. This is tough love, people, tough love. I am here for all of my fellow big-butted women, trying to save you from looking nasty. And please don't think that I'm calling anybody fat or saying for anyone to loose weight in order to be able to fit into those jeans. I have a butt and I always will. I like my ass. It looks good. I mean, the flab to muscle ratio is a little bit skewed in the wrong direction after having two kids, but I'm working on that. And just because I like the butt I have, doesn't mean that I need to be squeezing it into a pair of jeans that makes me look like _____ (I was going to write here a description of what the jeans look like on me but it's indescribable. There are no words).
Do you know who the real genius in all this is? The guy (or girl) who first saw skinny jeans on a runway somewhere and decided "Yes! We can sell these to everyday women". I feel like there was probably a down-to-earth assistant (probably with mildly wavy brown hair and glasses) who was like "Sir, everyday women won't look good in those jeans. They were made for the super skinny models to wear." And then the guy was like "I know! That's what makes it so perfect! We call them 'skinny jeans' and everyone will think that they make them look skinny! They will sell like crazy! Then we can sit back and watch all the young women and teenage girls in America prance around with these horrible jeans on! It will be hilarious!!! Muahhhahahahaha!" (That last part was his evil laugh...I didn't say that he was nice, just that he was a genius.) The genius part about of this is that it actually worked! And it obviously made this guy super rich. So, to the random rich skinny jean selling guy out there somewhere: good job. To his assistant: You are a failure. Maybe you need to make a different career choice. Perhaps something behind a desk. In a cubicle. To all of you ladies who need to now buy some new pants: good luck and don't give in to the 'skinny' label. And finally, to Alexa and Kate: with the families that you come from, there is no hope of tiny butts or thighs in your future. But that's OK!!! You have two of the cutest butts I have ever seen in my life!!!! But we have to keep it classy so don't ever expect to see any kind of skinny jeans in our house. Ever.
