It's in the jeans.

I am that strange breed of woman. The kind that hates shopping. My first few minutes in a shopping mall are spent taking in the sounds, the smells, the colours and possibilities of so many purchases. I wander around aimlessly, distracted by everything I did not come to the mall for. Finally, I get focused on whatever it was I went there to buy, in one of the usual places (Bluenotes for jeans, Suzy Shier for office clothes, Sirens for party outfits). By now the formaldehyde (that they put in the clothes to keep them “fresh” on the shelves for months) is getting to me and I’m incredibly thirsty and I have a headache. I know the clothes in these stores fit me, so I grab my size in a few different colours and head home. I hate trying clothes on – especially in those stores that don’t offer mirrors in the change rooms. Inevitably I will get home and realize something doesn’t quite fit – usually because they have changed the style (making the waist extra low so that you look like a plumber when you sit down, for example). Still, I would rather return to the mall another day with a return than spend an extra half hour trying things on. I realize this doesn’t really make sense but that’s the way I roll. Buyer’s remorse is a common malady for me.
So one day after Christmas I ran into Bayshore and picked up two different pairs of Paris style Bluenotes in waist size 30, length 34. Same style and size I’ve worn for two years, since I gained my Farmwife fifteen. One of the pairs was a dark denim (for work) and the other was a light stonewash (for play). I wore the dark pair a couple of times but it was at least a week before I got around to trying on the light pair.
And they didn’t fit. They were so tight, I felt like a stuffed sausage. If it wasn’t for the fact that the other jeans of a different denim but the same size fit perfectly, I would have thought that perhaps I had once again “blossomed”. But I hadn’t. I didn’t.
I was thinking these thoughts, summing up the effect in the full-length mirror in Paulina’s room, when something out the window caught my eye. One of my sheep was tangled in a length of twine at the hay feeder. She was lying on her side, struggling to free herself and only making it worse, of course. The twine was wound tightly around her neck.
I ran down the stairs, threw on my barn coat and stepped into my boots. Grapping the exacto knife on my way through the stable, I quietly rounded the bale from the opposite side, sneaking up on the sheep. She was making a strange moaning noise. I dropped down onto my knees, straddling her. Still lying on her side, she attempted to bolt away from me. I gently sat on her and searched through her fleece with my fingers until I found the twine. I cut it with the knife and freed her. I checked her all over for damage before I got up and helped her to her spindly feet.
It was at that moment that I realized I was still wearing the jeans. Without snowpants. And I had straddled a smelly, lanolin-laced sheep. The jeans didn’t fit. I had to return them. Yes, they cost me a grand $20. But I am a low-maintenance chick. And $20 is $20.
It’s a good thing I didn’t get tossed into the manure pile.
The next day, I headed back to Bayshore, and returned the jeans for another pair of the same style and size but still another denim. This time I tried them on. They fit fine. Tighter than the dark denim but not as restrictive as the light ones.
I don’t imagine Bluenotes incorporates a return policy wherein the merchandised is laundered before it returns to the shelves. And so I would like to declare, if you are the person who has purchased my returned pair of stonewash Paris style Bluenotes jeans in size 30 waist, 34 length, and you sense the faint scent of sheep on the denim, I apologize. And I assure you, the sheep that was straddled was a particularly clean one.