Meet The Nat Pack!

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The Nat Pack: The super fashionable, super mod, super hip family consisting of Nat, Pete, Jakob, Brock, Troy, and Ivy. Like The Rat Pack, only younger, cuter, and not as rich or famous.

Friday, July 18, 2008

The Choice is Yours: Ugly or Skanky?

I went clothes shopping a couple of weeks ago. At Wal-mart.

Maybe this was my first mistake, but hey, had to take the car to get lubed, and also had to get some food, and why not look at some clothes while I'm at it? Wal-mart is made for people like me, who are totally into one-stop shopping and a small sampling of brands. Though they totally don't carry the face goop that I love anymore...

I had a college roommate that worked at Wal-mart, and besides providing her with endless stories of crazy co-workers (seriously, I think some of them needed psychiatric evaluations) and ornery customers, she would occasionally come home with some cute shirts.

So I found an adorable skirt. Nice and cheap, multicolored so I could possibly place many different tops with it, making it versatile and making me feel like I really own 6 skirts. Go me, right? (I would love to go on "What Not to Wear" someday, but that day is oh so down the road. Come on, do I really want a $90 shirt that I have to dry clean when I'm battling the spit-up and drool and who knows what else?) Then I went looking for a cute top to go with it.

I grabbed a few shirts from both the "junior" section and the "ladies" section and headed toward the dressing room. I figured if I looked good in the clothes I picked out under the pasty death lights, I would look fabulous everywhere else!

Top #1: totally baggy and craptastic. Picked up from the "ladies" section. It made my hips look wide, my chest look droopy, and my waist nonexistent. Hmm.

Top #2: pretty decent. Also plucked from the "ladies" section. Sure, I'd have to wear a tank top thingy underneath, but what shirt do I not have to do that with nowadays?

Top #3: absolutely positively the cutest top I may have ever put on my body. Picked up from the "junior" section. LOVED this shirt. But...it was a tad too tight. I mean, I was looking for a top to go with a skirt that I planned to wear to church, and no one needs to see exactly what lies beneath, if you get my drift. So I decided I'd go back and get the same shirt just one size bigger.

But...Top #3 didn't exist one size bigger. Either they didn't make it, thinking that every girl that would shop in the "junior" section is either semi-slutty or itsy-bitsy, or the bigger sizes were all gone, because that shirt was the cutest top on every other person's body, too. *sigh*

I bought Top #2. And really, it's rather fetching. (You wanna see this hot hottie in Top #2? It's what I'm wearing in my header pic.) But it made me a little sad, because I'm not a junior anymore, but I don't quite fit in the ladies section, either. I get weird looks while shopping in both, the "why are you in my section?" looks. Where's the cute young mom section? Where, Wal-mart? (A side note: I don't buy all my clothes at Wal-mart; I totally have to have Gap jeans. So yes, I wear my $5 T-shirts with my $50+ jeans. No one does contradiction quite like me.)

So, is the choice going to always be the shirts that are too tight and say "spoiled brat" on them, or the shirts that are frumpy tents? Maybe I'll have to branch out my shopping center choices until someone makes a "cute young mom" store.

7 comments:

Layton Mom said...

You should try Kohl's. They have lots of decently priced not frumpy not teeny bopper tops. And I got the cutest pair of knee length shorts there.

Layton Mom said...

Oh yeah, I really like that top. It is a great color on you!

Jenny said...

amen.

i don't want to dress like i'm 80 OR 18.

Mosers said...

I love Ross, but when I go I either find a million things, or nothing! I also like Target's "mossimo" t-shirts because they are more slender but still long enough that I'm not hovering over my hubby to make sure he doesn't dry that one shirt that fits when he is "helping out" with laundry. If it doesn't go in the dryer, it doesn't belong in my closet!
So I have to laugh because I had this same contemplation about clothes in my mind today. My hubby says, "why are you wearing pants down town?" So I replied, because I have 5 weeks left and nothing fits except for your clothes... heaven forbid, I'd rather wear pants down town... I hate clothes shopping and when I do go (twice a year, spring and fall) I shop clearance and wear what I have till it's ragged! And even after that, I still like it because it fits and it's modest! Try finding shirts that fit when you have to buy the size for the twins and not for your body... that's a tent shirt hun! This has been good therapy, have a great day!!!!

Unknown said...

Oh man... I HATE clothes shopping anymore...

Get this. even in the expensive stores i can't find anything that fits right... because apparently people my size don't exist. According to stores people come in two makes: skinny and cute or massive and frumpy. And you've got it...I'm in between (thank you german ancestry!) I'm neither plus size nor normal size grrrrr. And all the "ladies or "womens" clothing seams to be made for my grandmother... and all the plus size are SHORT. That's right. Big people are only wide... NOT tall.. and those bellies? they don't need any extra fabric. GIVE ME A BREAK.
Lane Bryant has some cute stuff for me once in a while... but you got it... it's PRICEY. UGH.

OK... end rant :)

Kar said...

Oh, I feel your pain. I've decided that the only clothes that fit me decently are expensive clothes, but can I afford expensive clothes? Nope. So I buy Old Navy, which is cheap and cute, but none of their clothes quite fit me correctly. I used to love shopping, when I was a cute little size 7, but now, it's no longer my favorite thing. Last fall, it took me a thousand years to find shirts that fit me. I could find a lot of cute skirts, but I had to really hunt to find shirts that weren't skanky, but weren't tents. I'm feeling you there. Hey, let's nominate each other for "What Not to Wear" and pretend that we hate each others' clothes, even though I honestly think you have really cute clothes.

Anonymous said...

I absolutely love the photo of your family on the header. The perfect family photo. I really can't help laughing. At least you and Pete seem interested.