Sales can bring out the stupidity in me

I am declaring a moratorium on clothes shopping. Last week I spent all week eating. This week, I feel like I spent all week shopping.

I'm not actually much of a frequent shopper (I'm a frequent browser, but a less frequent buyer), but I needed some stuff for work, travel, and running, and this was the week that everyone from Macy's to REI seemed to be having a sale, so I kept going and spending.

In fact, I bought a skirt that I can't imagine ever wearing. On the surface, it seemed like a perfect buy. It looked really cute, it was on sale for like $25, down from $140, and they had my size. However, there were several problems with the skirt. First, due to size inflation, it was way too big. Second, this skirt had pleats all along the front, and I don't do pleats. One or two, I can tolerate, but gosh, all across the front? That's so 1982. Or at least, that was the last time I wore such a skirt. Third, it was a dry-clean only skirt, and unless it is a very versatile clothing item, (which this wasn't) I don't do "dry clean only" apparel. Fourth, I wasn't crazy about the color: this skirt had pale pinks and pale greens. I'm not necessarily excluding pinks and greens from my wardrobe, but these shades of pink and green, I don't typically do. Last and least (since this was the most remediable of problems), since I don't typically do these colors, I suspected I didn't own a single thing that would match this skirt.

But for $25, one can be duped into a false sense of flexibility.

The back didn't have pleats, and actually, if the skirt was like that all around (pleatless), that would solve problem 1 (b/c it would look less silly as a low-rise skirt. Can skirts be "low rise" like pants?), 2, and 3 (the pleats would make it impossible to hand-wash, b/c I also don't do the ironing thing, but w/o pleats, it can easily be hand-washed and line dried).

So I bought the skirt, because it was only $25, and if the front looked like the back, then a,b, and c (see previous paragraph for values of a, b, and c).

Last week, I kept the skirt out to see if I would be inspired to wear it to work, but no such inspiration came.

I wasn't sure what I was thinking when I thought "well, if the front of the skirt were like the back. . ." The very same thought transpired when I tried on my skirt again at home a few times. But how does this help me? It's kind of like saying, "well, if I had a million dollars. . ." Well, yes, but I don't, and the skirt isn't. Except that I never base my decisions on a hypothetical million dollars. So why did I buy a skirt based on this kind of ridiculous logic?

I blame it on the $25, and the display mannequin who made the ridiculously pleated skirt look so cute and fashionable. When I wore the skirt, I looked nothing like the mannequin. See what happens when stores use mannequins that are size zero amazon women? We start flattering ourselves and buying unflattering things we normally wouldn't think of buying, b/c we think we will look like the mannequins. This seems like a perfectly complain-worthy point, except that I think that is the whole point of having unrealistic-sized mannequins. Where are the mannequins with love handles? Where are the mannequins that are 5'4''?

Well, that was just the start of my shopping rampage. I also ended up getting a few more items over the weekend. I went to Union Square yesterday, then to REI today. But after spending more $ on things I would actually wear, I decided that even though $25 is a steal deal for a skirt that was originally $140, it's still a wasted $28 (by the time you add tax), if I won't ever wear it.

It's funny that it sometimes takes spending an extra $200 to arrive at this seemingly common-sensical thought--or in other words, I need to spend $200 to not spend $25 stupidly.

I concluded my weekend shopping spree by returning this skirt.