Sunday 17 August 2008

Levi Stress!

At the moment I am feeling particularly frustrated by life. Discontentment surrounds me. It's not just the everyday things like balancing your cheque book (which if I'm honest I can't really do as due to mismanaging my finances when I was young resulted in the bank taking away my cheque book and so all my adult life I've lived without one!) nor is it job stresses... although that is part of it! It is more to do with the lack of quality in life. As life gets more expensive and we all want more, more, more I still can't fathom why everything lacks a certain quality.

My main frustration involves things I buy. It seems to me that you work hard for your money and you see things you want. You crave it and work out how you are going to buy it. THEN YOU GET IT! Your life is complete and suddenly your self esteem is raised.... at least for the few minutes that it is brand spanking new and therefore perfect. It is only minutes later when you notice a fault that you feel disheartened and irritated by what only can be described as the crap quality.

For the last few months I have been looking for the perfect pair of jeans. You know the kind every once in a while you buy a pair of jeans that just fit right. They are like your second skin and you reach for them every day when you need to feel good about yourself. They have kept their colour, they seem to expand perfectly to your ever-increasing waist line and they just look better with age... a Sean Connery of jeans if you like. After a whole year of wearing them you notice they are starting to fray... but it adds to their character! And then the fatal starts to happen you realise that you need a replacement. Not just a replacement but an equivalent pair. Apart from they don't sell the exact ones anymore and so the quest starts. You search every shop, you enter hot changing rooms and squeeze yourself into the same size jeans ... only of course, the shops have changed their sizings and instead they are a lot tighter than before. Yet you know that they have changed their sizings because the old faithfuls still fit perfectly! And so it goes on the never ending quest for the next perfect jeans.

So I am now at this stage. I have been on this quest for some months now apart from the unthinkable has happened and there is a hole in the old faithfuls just below the bum cheek so I know I can't wear them (well I can but if I do I will have to write this blog from my prison cell as I will be arrested for exposing myself!)... but I can't throw them away either. As you fail to find the exact replica you find yourself buying various other jeans which are not quite perfect but which will see you through until your eureka moment when you find the new perfect replacement.

Which brings me to the current situation. I found a pair of jeans of mediocre quality but quite nice. They fit ok but they do that thing where they shrink in the wash each time so I then spend a lot of time pulling them up with all the strength in my upper arms, then pushing the pockets back in, then I start doing lunges round the room. Not for any exercise reason although thinking about it, it does count doesn't it? It's exercise right? It makes my heart race as the tightness of the jeans is unbearable at this stage and normally builds up a sweat and I immediately start feeling uncomfortable about how much tighter the jeans have got. Then I have to start trying to stretch the area round the knees which for some reason always crunkle up at the wrong part. And then the lunges continue because the crotch of the jeans has not gone back to the correct place and is hanging down mid thigh. And then just as I am ready and have managed to get the correct fitting the unthinkable happens! The zip ceases to work! Every time I pull it up it comes back down rapidly. It is either wear these jeans with a long top and therefore hide the fact that I'm flying low or just start searching for a different equally ill fitting pair of jeans to wear. One time I opted for the first and wore a long top but as I went through security at the airport and was then pulled over to be frisked I realised it was a bad idea as the woman patted down my legs and then was face to face with my open zip. As I tried to explain the jeans had broken she just gave me that slightly odd look of a mix of sympathy and being slightly frightened. And so now I tend to start looking for another pair of jeans to wear in my overflowing wardrobe of ill fitting ones! Those jeans were taken back to the shop and exchanged for a replica... because although they are only mediocre they would do until the day my life will change ... when I find a new pair of perfect jeans! I will not give up.

As I repeated the above a week later by lunging around the room etc after the new jeans were washed I finally reached the final stage when what should happen but the button then snapped off. Close to tears and feeling pretty frustrated that God insists on making my life with jeans so difficult I found myself back at the shop exchanging them whilst being looked at cynically because by now the shop assistant thinks I am in fact a bit of a con artist who is just wearing jeans, breaking them deliberately so I can get a new pair and she is also looking me up and down. I know what she's thinking! I can even hear her thoughts "Maybe you should just get a bigger size love". But the bigger size gapes at the back and then everytime I sit down the whole world sees my knickers which is a form of abuse on the public. It may work for Britney but I'll be honest I am not willing to risk it in normal every day life. In fact thong showing is equivalent to builders bums. It's not funny, it's not clever and it can't be comfortable.

So when the lady agreed to exchange the jeans I spotted another pair but this time a black pair. Hmmm interesting. Maybe I could get the perfect pair of black jeans! I arrived home and was suitably impressed with the fit. I will be able to tell more when they are washed but so far so good. That evening when I went out with friends I happily strode out in my new jeans spotting my reflection in the window and thinking maybe these were the ones that would solve all my problems of the jean area. How could I be so wrong? As I left the house I nearly tripped and fell as my heel on my shoe caught the back of the jeans and immediately created a hole in the hem of the jeans. Feeling fed up I perservered hoping that this would just give the jeans character. Unfortunately it then started to rain. As it did I noticed the colour of the jeans literally staining my feet (which were in open toe sandals for any foot fetish readers!). By the time I went to the toilet for the first time in the evening I noticed that the whole of the lower part of my body was now stained with black dye. This was fine as noone could see it but as the evening went on and the jeans were still slightly damp from the rain the dye was now leaking onto my fingers whenever I touched my jeans and staining my arms when I was not concentrating and had lent on arms on my knees. By the time I got home I looked like I had not had a wash in days and I have spent the whole day today scrubbing my skin to remove the staining and subsequently caused bruised feeling bright red skin all over my arms and legs.

So the quest is continuing and my life is far from complete. The quality is not how it used to be and like any other person who is lacking in their lives I will not give up on my journey to find the best jean partnership since cowboys and jeans. Lonely girl looking for fun, loyalty and a comfortable relationship seeks jeans, perfect fit and hardwearing with a good sense of humour. If you are out there jeans I'm looking for you... stay where you are I coming to get you!

4 comments:

Ken Duck Geraths said...

Clare you do not disapoint! I read this and was feeling your pain!. I think I will start a movement here against the ever cahngeing styles and sizes. (but you do know that they change like this, Size 6 is now size 4) Not the other way around. But as a firm member of the male race I think that all women should have at LEAST one pair of jeans that look as if they were spayed on!! So fight on!

Anonymous said...

I agree with Ken. Keep the fight alive and even though we feel your geniune pain, rejoice knowing that men and women everywhere feel the same way you do.

E.Rae said...

Oh my goodness I totally feel your pain. But you tell it in such a funny way. My fav jeans have just developed the zip coming down problem. I googled how to fix it and was pretty much told to buy a bigger size :(
Good luck finding those perfect jeans.

Anonymous said...

I don't think I have ever had the perfect pair of jeans - been looking for years! I think it's because I have had so many bad inperfect pairs that I daren't spend over £40 on what potentially great jeans in case it's a waste. Perhaps I need to stop being a tight arse when it comes to jeans and take the risk!

I know how you feel about your black jeans - I've got one pair, worn twice then I had to redye them cos they went grey, 2 more wears and they need doing again - they just don't have their worn and loved thing like blue jeans do they? :o)