Five for Friday: Five Weird Things You May Not Know About Me.

Good morning!

I was going through my week...and what a week it was, with it being PM's first week at his new job and Captain Nubbin trying to do something he's very unaccustomed to doing:  Something constructive at work.  (This just in:  It didn't go well.)  I realized, last night as I was chatting with Skippy, that there are some odd things about me that most people don't know about me.  Sure, you all know my issues with public restrooms, but believe me, that's not even the start of my oddities!

So, why not?  Let's delve into five weird things you may not know about me.

5)  Pink wine gives me heartburn...except when I'm at Marie's house.

I'm like most women, I got my start with wine by drinking White Zinfandel in college.  But over the years I've noted that when I drink that lovely pink wine I get the WORST heartburn.  I've switched, in my own life, to pinot noir or some other darker red wine, and I've even delved into whites lately, all with good results.  But pink wines, and this has come to include moscotoes, I can't drink without heartburn.

Unless I'm at Marie's house.

Somehow, when I go to my friend Marie's place and we play a little game we call "A Movie, Two Moms, Three Glasses of Wine"  I'm perfectly fine.  No heartburn, no nothing.  So you figure that one out.




4)  I'm terrified of basements at night...except I forget I am until I'm actually IN the basement.

When I was fourteen I saw "Night of the Living Dead."   The scene where the little girl is in the basement terrified me so deeply that even now, more that three decades later, I fear being alone in basements at night.  That includes completely finished rec rooms.  The WEIRD part is, I never remember that fear until I'm actually IN the basement doing something completely normal, like folding laundry or something like that.  Suddenly I'll realize I'm alone in a basement at night and I get into a bit of a panic and MUST, MUST stop what I'm doing and RUN up the stairs to the safety of the upper level.  


3) A Grilled Cheese Sandwich MUST come with jelly or jam.

I never thought this was a weird thing until I got old enough to date boys and felt the grilled cheese sandwich was safe food to eat in public.  (A sub category of this blog should be "5 foods I will never eat in front of strangers or people I want to impress.")  I grew up putting jelly on grilled cheese.  Traditional: White bread, American cheese, grape jelly.  But there are so many variations and depending on the cheese, there are jams/jellies that pair nicely.  I can't pair wine with food, but I know which jam goes with what cheese on a grilled cheese sandwich.  

My dream job, other than rock star movie critic, is to own a restaurant called "Say Cheese" and have nothing but grilled cheese sandwiches and variations on the jam/cheese combos.

2)  I won't eat Christmas Cookies from a big mixed up tray of cookies.

I know I've mentioned this, but it bears repeating because, as fluffy as I am, this is one weird thing about me.  It's a big deal because around here that's what we do during the holidays, we make fifty kinds of cookies and slap half a dozen of each on a tray and pass the trays out to friends and neighbors.  As a kid I used to love it...but something happened one year when, newly moved into our first house as grown ups, our neighbor, a lovely man, brought us a giant tray of cookies because he'd just gotten a cookie press and just COULDN'T STOP HIMSELF.  

When I bake Christmas cookies, and I do manage to crank out a couple batches, I keep them in separate containers and serve them on separate plates at parties.  It's weird, but it's who I am, and for as fluffy as I am...I tend to NOT gain weight over the holidays because I rarely eat the cookies.

1)  And unmade bed makes me insane.

My mother never makes her bed.  NEVER.  In every other aspect she's a ridiculously clean, tidy person, but her bed is always a tangled hot mess.  Growing up, she used to tell people she didn't make her bed because if anyone broke into the house she wanted them to think someone had already burgled the place.  

Meanwhile, my house usually looks like a scene out of "Animal House" but my bed is made.  I'm the first person out of the house every morning...but Hubby knows he'd best make the bed because if it's unmade when I get home I will comment on it...while making the bed.

I was the annoying girl in college who would go into my friends' dorm rooms and make their beds.  I had one friend who yelled at me for several minutes because I was making her bed and she simply DID NOT WANT IT MADE.

See, I can't even understand those words.

My kids NEVER make their beds...and I make sure their doors are shut so I can't hear the unmade beds calling to me to make them.  Skippy and I had a long debate last night about the joys of an unmade bed versus a made bed.

There you go.  My five weird things.  So read, enjoy, discuss.

Not every tale wags with hilarity.

Good evening.

My Sunday School students are always asking me to tell stories about my childhood.  My children, when they were small, would clamor for stories and I'd have them pick an age and then I'd tell a story from when I was that age.

Most of my stories are funny because I can tell stories and put a funny spin on them.

Recently, at work, I've been a called a liar, a cheater, a blackmailer by customers.  At home there have been other words ascribed to me that have been far less obvious, but just as cruel.  Like most people, I understand that words mean things and that name calling hurts.  I come from the "sticks and stones" generation.  No, calling me a liar, a cheater, a thief (that was one especially satisfied customer) when you haven't met me and all I am to you is the voice on the other end of the phone telling you that you were the one who put the cigarette burn in the item we installed and therefore no, our warranty will not apply to your repair isn't going to kill me.  But it hurts all the same.

The past few days have been especially hard for me.  PM is no longer working for Stuff, Installed and Captain Nubbin has basically dumped the unpleasant calls to my phone and left the building for places he cannot be reached.  So there's no one to go to for support, knowledge, or to take on an especially furious customer.  It's my job, now, to deal with it.  

I'm not cute when I cry.  Plus it gives me a blazing headache that lasts for days after the crying fit is over.  So I do my very best not to let the tears out.

So what do I do?  Where do I go when the volume on my many imperfections is turned past 11?

I have this story.  I haven't told it often.  It's one I keep for myself for weeks like this.  But it's one I need to see in print because that's my medium of choice.

So here it is:

I was eighteen, I think, working as an opening waitress at a Big Boy restaurant.  I'd been working at the same place since late in my junior year of high school.  They kept bringing me back for summers when I was in college.  I graduated from "carry out girl"  (the person who bagged up take out orders of chicken and burgers) to waitress.  I liked my job most of the time because it was good money and I liked meeting people.

I remember on this morning it was sunny.  Very sunny.  We had to pull the blinds on the windows because the windows were on the east side of the building, pointing toward Lake Michigan.  It was sunny and it was early.  And I think it might have been a Sunday because I don't recall my weekday regulars, (the couple who always ordered oatmeal, except when they didn't, the decaf ladies, the regular coffee ladies, the guy with the speech impediment who tried for an entire summer to get me to go out with him and then the next summer asked if I'd gotten fat over the school year, those people) being there.  

A man was seated in my station.  He was a brown man, and I point that out because living on the Northeast coast of Wisconsin in the late 1980's, we didn't get a lot of brown people.  There was an influx of Asian people starting to come into town back then, but mostly what we had were white folks who didn't mind the 9 months of damp and cold followed by 3 months of damp and slightly less cold.  So, being brown, he stuck out.  

I went up to him, told him my name, gave him a glass of water, and asked him if I could get him any coffee.  He had an accent, I remember that, but I was eighteen and hadn't been around a lot of people with accents.  Looking back, if I had to sweat to it, I'd say he was Eastern Indian.  He was very, very polite and soft spoken.  He said he really had no money, but he was waiting for his brother.  He asked if he might have some coffee.  I brought it and told him it would be okay he didn't have to pay for a cup of coffee.

I attended to other customers for a bit and checked in with him.  No brother yet.  He was very apologetic, but asked if perhaps I could place a phone call for him.  This was back in the day before cell phones.  And the office was locked because the manager had not yet come in, so I couldn't use that phone.  There was a payphone outside the restaurant and I said I would place the call as long as it was local because I hadn't been on very long and didn't have a lot in the way of cash myself.

He gave me the number and I told the hostess I had to use the restroom.  See, back then the only people who got breaks were people who smoked, which is why pretty much everyone I worked with smoked.  So I called the brother. He also was very soft spoken and had the same accent.  I explained who I was and that someone saying he was his brother had given me the number. I gave him the address.

A while later, the brother appeared.  I gave both men a cup of coffee and let them talk.  I took care of other customers, refilling their cups only when they pushed them to the edge of the table.  (That's the eternal signal, by the way, for "my coffee cup is EMPTY!")  After about an hour, they left.  The brother stopped me and thanked me for calling him.  He didn't say much else, but I got the impression the men hadn't seen each other in a very long time.  He said I was very kind and he appreciated my kindness and generosity to his brother.

Later, when I cleared the table I saw they left money enough on the table to cover the cost of the coffee and a quarter for the phone call, which I hadn't charged them for.  I could have kept it as a tip, but that felt really wrong, so I wrote up a bill for two cups of coffee and gave the money to the hostess. I kept the quarter, and I actually kept that quarter for a long time, sort of as a keepsake.

Over the years parts of the story have faded.  I mean, it's been nearly 30 years since I worked that job. and in the pantheon of my life it's such a quiet, tiny moment. But I don't think a year goes by that I don't think of those two brothers.  And when I'm feeling especially low and I feel like maybe I am useless and a cheater and a thief and a liar, I go back to that brown man with the soft voice asking me to please call his brother and I think of the brother thanking me so quietly, yet with so much feeling that a child of eighteen would never forget it and instead would appreciate it for decades.

FLASHBACK FIVE FOR FRIDAY!

Good morning everyone!

So this has been a rough week at Stuff, Installed.  PM gave his notice late last week.  (Yes, I'm very, very sad.)  And then, just when you thought THAT was going to be the WORST, then our plumber, you know, the guy who pretty much does all the super hard technical stuff on 90% of the stuff we install, and legally, we can't install the stuff without him, gave HIS NOTICE.

CN actually broke out into a sweat worrying about all this.  And then he talked to like two people who must have said something he liked because now he's convinced we're just fine, JUST FINE.  Of course, I can't help but notice that while he's euphorically optimistic, several new tasks have been shifted to my desk.

Anyway, all this quitting and chaos put me in mind of Noelle C's final two weeks, and after doing a bit of digging, I found a past post that made me laugh.

This was originally posted May 14, 2013.  (So remember, "Lumbergh" is now "CN.")  Enjoy!

Good morning!

I haven't done a five for Friday in a while, but I do believe this one is well worth the wait.  And I know it's only Tuesday, but I can't wait to share this with you!

So as you may have read, or sensed from the songs of joy blasting forth from my desk this week, Noelle C has given her two weeks' notice, and will not be with us much longer.  In fact, after breaking down the vacation days she is cramming into her final two weeks, and our differing schedules, I have roughly, from this moment, 18 hours left with her.

And I do mean suffer.

On a normal week, when all is well with the world and she's not making gigantic changes in her life, Noelle C, as we know, is a bit quirky and emotional.  Now, she's changing jobs, leaving her beloved Lumbergh, and I guess, moving out of her apartment.

This leads us to the top five whackadoodly awesome things she's said to me in these her final days.

5)  "It's not your business where I'm going, what I'm going to be doing, what I'll be paid, how far my drive is, what my hours are, or anything.  I told you I didn't want to talk about it now stop trying to pump me for information."

Her response to the question, "So I hear you're leaving us.  What's your new job going to be?"  And I'm not the only one she sang this sweet song to in the past couple days, either.  This statement was followed by seven working hours of icy, but unwhacky, silence.

4)  "What's the point of paying for any kind of insurance when you're only going to use it maybe once a year.  I heard about this doctor in Minnesota or maybe Georgia who charges $35 a month and $15 a visit no matter what your ailment is and then you just pay reduced lab and treatment fees. So I'm just going to start seeing him.  Car insurance, health insurance, vision, dental, you'll just go broke paying for insurance."

I didn't ask for the silence to be broken. I was perfectly happy honoring her request to be left alone.  But today she decided to drop as many pearls of wisdom on me as possible, and this one was a head scratcher.  Read her statement closely and think about this:  She's paying $50 a month for very good medical coverage.  Yes, there's a copay for office visits, and yes there are charges for labs and that sort of thing.  One would say...it's a reduced charge because of the insurance.  Oh, and since the insurance is taken out pretax, we don't pay income tax on it, so if I'm doing the math right...having health insurance is probably less expensive than, you know NOT having health insurance and going to this one doctor in Minnesota...or Georgia...or where ever he is.

Oh yeah, and, um, she lives in Wisconsin.  So there's that.

3)  "Lumbergh probed me to learn all my secrets, and took away my soul, and used my car to spy on people, and stole my very heart and by quitting, I got my heart and soul back and he can't abuse me anymore."

Ummmm.....huh?

I don't use the word "delusional" nearly often enough for this woman.  Lumbergh, honestly, has been a model of patience with her, as far as he is able.  He's not the most patient person.  But the whole deal with this is pretty much all in her head...and very, very icky.  It ranks right up there with the time she told me she was the inspiration for the cover art work to the Dungeons and Dragons magazine.

2)  "I'm going to work two jobs until I'm 62 and then I'm going to work part time and kick back and I don't care what happens in this world or in this planet because I'm going to a job where I'm going to be making a lot more money, A LOT MORE MONEY, A LOT MORE MONEY, and I'm going to be training inside sales people and I'm going to be management and I'll be making a lot more money, more money than I can every begin to imagine."

This was blown out at me a couple hours after I got a very nasty email from her saying it was none of my business what she was doing with her life, and that I knew she and I had no relationship at all and therefore I should leave her alone and not talk to her.  Then she dumps this stream of consciousness on me...and seriously it was one sentence.  So let's analyze:

Working two jobs...okay, I can respect that. I do that.  But the whole thing about the new job where she's going to be made training management and she's going to make more money than she can ever imagine...

Does anyone else think maybe she's just gotten sucked into one of those schemes were they promise you all kinds of "potential income?"

I think I was happier when she wasn't talking about it.

1)  "It's just like what happened to Amanda Berry."

Now this is going to take some explaining.  She went to lunch today, I guess to the Golden Arches, which is down the street and across the road from our office.  She went inside to get her order.  When she came out, according to her, a very large  ("9 months pregnant times 2") man in a pick up truck was pulling out of his spot next to her car.  He stopped his car "to watch her walk to her car and get in."  She nodded to him "Like normal people do."  (What would she know about what normal people would do?)

The truck then pulled out of the parking lot ahead of her.  They both stopped at the lights  (the one where I was crushed by a guy running a red light).  She was behind the truck.  He went forward across the road and she followed, but something in her brain decided to switch on because she suddenly believed he was stalking her.  So she pulled into the nearest parking lot on the right side of the road and waited.

She said the truck was out of site for a few minutes, then came back out and approached the lights again.  The truck got to the lights and stopped.  She pulled out of the parking lot and said, "Then he turned around in his seat to look at me."

And then this is where she really goes off the rails.  I was trying to figure out what she was so freaked out.  The guy worked for a messenger company, according to the sign on the side of his truck.  My guess is he drove up to an office at the end of the block, delivered something, then came back to the lights.  Or maybe, with all the construction going on in the area, he got turned around and was looking for a street sign.

"Why do you look like you think I'm crazy?"  She asks.

"Well, because I'm thinking there was no need to worry.  He didn't get out of the truck, he didn't approach you.  He didn't talk to you."

"Yes, but I nodded to him and then later he looked around in his seat.  It's just like what happened with Amanda Berry.  That guy that kidnapped her said she got kidnapped because she got into a car with a stranger."

I don't think my expression changed one bit.  I didn't see the parallel between her driving behind a messenger who turned around in his seat while at a red light and Amanda Berry who was locked in a basement for ten years.

"Did you get in the car with him?"

"No.  I got the hell out of there and came back to work."

Now I'm worried, because when she starts using salty language, that's when her bra makes an appearance.

"Okay then, well, I guess you' can't be too careful."  And that's when I got out of there.

18 more hours....

Here's a superpower I'll bet you're going to want!

Good evening!

Every so often the idea of "What's Your Superpower?" goes around the Web.  I'm a woman, I always think women are born with superpowers no one appreciates.  We don't to fly or be invisible.  If you're a mom with multiple kids in multiple after school activities, you know you can do both.

I also never read a ton of comic books, so I'm not sure how everyone got their superpowers.  But I can say this:  As of last Saturday, I know what I want mine to be...and I think some of you out there are going to want this as well!

As most of you know, I have issues with public restrooms.  (Really?  Another crazy story from the restroom?  Why doesn't this woman just get herself sewn up and then consume nothing but clear liquids for the rest of her life and wear a "bleacher buddy?")

Fine, joke all you want, but it's not like I PLAN these things to happen.  Anyway, Saturday Hubby and I were going to Target for cat litter and a new DVD player.  (Okay, yes, we were getting cat litter and I'm writing a post about a public restroom.  Go ahead, giggle.)

As we walked into the store, I decided I would take a chance an use the Target loo.  I mean, I've been in there before, it's typically clean and usually pretty empty.  And there's plenty of room for "buffer stalls."  (And if you don't know what that is then maybe YOU'VE been sewn up and consume nothing but clear liquids!)

Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for this blog, Target was full of people that day there was a bit of a traffic jam in the area near the restrooms.  I found myself trapped behind a woman who was chatting on her cell phone.  She chatted on her way to the restroom, on her way into the restroom, on her way into the stall, as she bolted the stall door, and as she lowered her trousers and settled on the toilet!  It was quite the conversation all about Karen and OMG and I can't believe she totally said that...

Using the public restroom is hard enough for me. Knowing that I not only had Chatty Chelsea but also her phone friend occupying the stall on the other side of our buffer stall, made me quite uncomfortable.  Fortunately for me, what I was doing wasn't terribly noisy, although what Chatty Chelsea was doing...well, it WAS noisy.  And you know what?

She never said a word!  She never said to her friend, "Oh, by the way, I'm currently relieving myself at the Target while I'm talking to you about nothing important. And yes, there's someone else in here, so maybe I'll try and blame my toilet noise on her."  No, she said NOTHING!  

Remember back in the days when the cordless phone was new?  And people would say, "HEY!  I can use the bathroom and still talk to my mother without having to hang up on her very interesting story about Aunt Agatha's bunion surgery.  As long as I DON'T FLUSH and don't make any awful noises, she'll never know!"

But we all knew because, see, the bathroom has a weird echo sound no other room in the house would have. My sister in law used to talk to my husband and he'd say, "Are you in the bathroom?"  And she'd deny it, and we'd all know better. And then we'd laugh.

Well let's flash forward several years and I've got this complete stranger doing her business while chatting away as if body waste isn't hitting cold water in an echoing room.  And she's not only not denying anything, she's completely acting like she's sitting on her couch at home.

All I wanted in that moment...the super power I prayed for as I listened to her inane conversation about stupid stuff, was that I could will myself to let go of the most awesome, most powerful, most sound barrier shattering case of explosive diarhea.  Oh, how would Miss Manners two doors down cover THAT?  In that moment I wanted no other super power than the ability to explode my own bowels and shame the person on the phone.

But alas, I was not given that power in that moment and I instead had to satisfy myself by flushing a couple times, which my toilet talker ignored, so deep was she in conversation.

We reached the sink at the same time.  She was perfectly aware that I'd heard her entire conversation and witnessed the fact that she made no apology for being in the ladies' room.  She talked the entire time she rinsed her hands...I say rinsed because she did not use soap...ewww.

She left before me, mostly because I knew Hubby was just outside the door and I wanted to be able to POINT HER OUT!

LOOK!  I all but shouted, LOOK AT THAT WOMAN!  SHE NEVER STOPPED TALKING!

The only thing that would have made this better is if she HAD said something interesting.  I might not have flushed that second time.  The fact that she never stopped her chatter about NOTHING, however, is the spark that uncovered my desired superpower.

I should thank her for that.  Next time I'm in a public bathroom I'll look for her.  She'll be the one on the phone.

Hey, Gloria Vanderbuilt, Lee, and Kohl's: I know your horrible secret!

Good evening!

I know, it's Wednesday and I haven't blogged on a Wednesday in a while.

Well, I have discovered a horrible secret...and a magnificent triumph on my part.

For the last few months I've realized that I've put on a few pounds.  We call the extra weight my stress baby because it has, graciously, all hit me in the attractive gut area.  I know what I need to do to get rid of it, but right now I am not focusing on me so much at others around me.  I'll get to it soon enough.

However, since my gut is a bit bigger than it was the last time I bought pants, I've been in a quest to find blue business casual pants that fit me.  And, since my butt and my legs have not changed at all in the stress weight gain, I am insulted to think that I'm going to be forced to buy a bigger pair of pants just because those who design pants for large women have never actually met a fluffy girl and therefore feel we all still maintain an hourglass shape of sorts.  Of course, designers for fluffy women also believe that fluffy women are just WIDE and therefore if they make tops WIDER but no LONGER, it's all just fine and dandy.  Yes, I need a bit more length to cover my gut.  I do not enjoy wearing a tent with a neck hole big enough for two.

Anyway, today as I left work I decided to stop at the Kohl's near my work.  Fun fact about this particular Kohl's.  It's September 3.  We're having the warmest three day stretch weather wise we've had all summer.  And this Kohl's has just put up their Christmas decorations.  (Yeah, don't take down you're lights, I rant until June 25.  Put up your decorations before Halloween, and I'm going to rant again.)

I got to the fluffy girls department and saw the usual collection of sad jeans (can't wear them to work) and two pairs of semi decent pants, but with waists far narrower than I'll ever fit.  (Sinfully soft my sweet aunt....Yes, I'm talking to you LEE JEANS!)  And then there were several racks of pull on pants.

Since when is it okay for fluffy girls to just give up zippers?  Was there a memo?  Did I miss it?  Because here's the problem I have with the pull on pant:  The waist looks lovely and smooth in the store.  BUT, put it on a person, let them walk around or sit a while, and the elastic folds in half...but only for half the pant.  The other half stays wide.  It looks stupid and it's uncomfortable.

Yes, I am able to wear Gloria Vanderbilt's
plus sized pants.  Why do you ask?

And oh yeah, you also know you've given up trying to zip or button pants.

I was excited a few weeks ago when I found something by Gloria Vanderbilt called "Soft pants."  They had a zipper.  Legs and butt fit like a dream.  The waist was clearly made for a woman trying to win "Smallest waist" in Guinness Book of World records.

So today I went in, wandered around the fluffy department and their four racks of sorry pants.  And I ignored the Jennifer Lopez rack entirely.  First of all, stop it Jennifer Lopez.  Second of all, those are not "soft pants."  They have a draw string.  Putting studs and rhinestones on them doesn't make them any less of sweat pants.

I made Peaches promise me that she would never let me buy a pair of pull up pants.  I'm not 80.  I can zip and button.  I'd just like to do it in a pair of pants that doesn't flap around my thighs like some sort of mainsail.  (I've been watching A LOT of pirate era movies this week since Hubby is out of town.)

Discouraged, I started to wander out of the store and in doing so I found myself some place I haven't been in a long time:  The misses department.

Fluffy girls, you know how we have four racks and a walk at Kohl's?  Yeah, That's just the misses' department CLEARANCE.  And Misses has THREE DEPARTMENTS:  Fitness, business, and casual.  We have one chubby mannequin and nine shelves of "burnout" t-shirts.  Someone explain to me why fluffy girls are being forced to wear SO MANY BURN OUT t-Shirts?

I started to stroll through the magnificent fields of clothing.  So many textures, so many styles, so many COLORS  (do you know they have YELLOW AND GREEN in Misses?  And RED...oh the lovely RED!)  and ZIPPERS....there were whole city blocks of business casual pants with ZIPPERS.  And guess what?

GUESS WHO MADE THOSE ROWS AND ROWS AND ROWS of pants with zippers:

LEE JEANS AND GLORIA STINKING VANDERBILT!

We get jeans and pull on jeans.  Skinny girls get FIVE DIFFERENT KINDS OF LEE JEANS.  I counted.  FIVE. And that's just jeans.  Lee makes relaxed, curvy, and comfort stretch OFFICE CASUAL PANTS!    Those are FLUFFY GIRL WORDS...why are the skinny girls getting CURVY casual pants?

I was enraged.  I was furious.

I was sort of wondering if I would fit into any of them.

For those of you who don't know, there is a wide world of difference between a size 16W and a size 16.  Usually the gut and butt areas are a bit more roomy.  But, it's been quite some time since I've found a pair of size 16 pants that didn't have a gut issue.  (Seriously, a few sit ups and I'll be on my way.)    So hey, I've had a lousy stupid week at the old Stuff, Installed, why not further beat down my self esteem by putting on pants that only fit to my knees?

So I picked out a couple likely pairs of 16's and a couple pairs of 18's and one pair...GLORIA STINKING VANDERBILT, of "waist slimming ponte pants."  Now I have no idea what Ponte means, but the waist slimming part of these pants was basically a heavy duty band of elastic about eight inches wide that went around the extra flabby part of our gut areas.  Oh, and it was nice, lovely, soft material.  (Hey, Skinnies, tell me again how hard it is to find pants that fit.)

I went to the fitting room  (the last stop before HELL in my life.) and I put on the first pair of pants a very dark denim casual pant, size 18 misses.

And the heavens opened and angels sang and and little blue birds fluttered around my head because these PANTS FIT!   Sure, they were the tiniest bit snug in the frontal gut area, but they fit WAY BETTER than the 16W in the SAME STUPID STYLE.  (I'm starting to hate you, LEE JEANS.)

I tried on the next pair, a pair of Lees, size 16, with a zipper and a lovely soft, cottony waistband.

This time I was denied.  Apparently one Skinny girls get the nice soft waistband that's made of sweatshirt material and designed to NOT slice you in half like a piano wire.

Then I tried on the stretch, waist slimming Gloria Vanderbilt's.

Friends, they were the single most comfortable pair of pants I've ever in my life put on.  Ever.  They made my sweatpants look like barbed wire. The waist band did actually slim me a tiny bit, without digging into my skin. The length was right and when I dropped my long shirt over it, no one was the wiser.

Yeah...I didn't buy those.

See, I made that promise and these pants were just way too close to being pull on pants.
Sure, they were amazing.  But hey, if I got that comfortable in pants at work...I might want to keep wearing those pants at work... and stay at work...and wear those pants.

The sick, sad part of this all is that I found all these amazing pants in the MISSES department.  I am clearly a plus sized woman.  No one would ever mistake me for anything else.  BUT...I found three pairs of pants that fit me BETTER than those in the plus department. And yes, I had to go up a number.

But I got to drop the dreaded W.

And, I got to uncover a horrible secret:  Kohl's, Lee Jeans, and Gloria Vanderbilt do not give a snotty sneeze about the 52% of women who purchase plus sized clothing.  There are MILES of racks at Kohl's for the less than fluffy.  The fluffy are relegated to the back of the store  (for extra exercise I'm sure) and given maybe half an aisle.

So I'm putting a call out to LEE JEANS and GLORIA VANDERBILT AND KOHL'S:

1)  Stop treating plus sized women like we are criminals who need to wear nothing but tents and jeans and pull up pants.  WE ARE HUMANS AND WE LIKE PRETTY THINGS AND CHANCES ARE WE HAVE JUST AS MUCH MONEY AS SKINNY WOMEN.

2) Kohl's:  START CARRYING DANA BUCHMAN IN PLUS AGAIN.  I thought you stopped carrying her altogether.  And I stumbled upon a CITY BLOCK OF NOTHING BUT BUCHMAN in MISSES.  We as a fluffy nation do not like Jennifer Lopez.  Stop making us wear her crappy studded clothing.

3)  LEE JEANS AND GLORIA VANDERBILT.  I have been a loyal customer of yours for more than 20 years.  STOP SCREWING WITH ME.  MAKE PLUS SIZED PANTS THAT FIT PLUS SIZED WOMEN.  I do NOT NEED A SIZE 22 pant, the legs and butt are MASSIVE ON ME. I could make a blazer out of the excess.  BUT, since my waist will only FIT in a size 22...I'm not going to buy from you people.

AND FINALLY:

FLUFFY WOMEN!  GET YOURSELVES OVER TO THE MISSES DEPARTMENT...SCARE AWAY THE SKINNIES AND TRY on SOME PANTS!  They are CHEAPER, THEY ARE cuter, THEY ARE MORE COMFORTABLE....and THEY ARE CHEAPER!  (How is that even possible?)