I'm No Cinderella

Good judgment flew out the window this week. I decided to shop for jeans.

A friend of mine recently strutted by me in a super cute pair of jeans so I had to find out where she got them. She proceeded to excitedly tell me all about her amazing shopping excursion at a local store where she was treated like a queen by the sales clerk and jeans were hand-picked off the racks just for her...and poof! The perfect pair of jeans found a new home.

Intrigued by her find, I decided to check it out myself.

Let's just say, if my friend was Cinderella, I apparently was one of the evil stepsisters. Because just as there was no chance that little shoe was fitting their feet, I would not get those jeans beyond my knees.

The mystery to me is that the jeans can be the size of all my other pants, and yet you'd think I was trying to slip into a pair 3 sizes too small.

The other great mystery? After peeling the denim off my calves and holding them up to inspect the size, immediate depression kicks in. Seriously? My thigh is BIGGER than that?!?!

Someone. Please. Tell me! Why are jeans so deceptive? How can something that looks large enough to wrap around a circus elephant not get over my hips?

Now I'm not going to attempt to say that I'm the thinnest person in the world. Believe me - I steered clear of the rack of 'skinny jeans.' I'm not that foolish! I can honestly say there is no part of my body I would deem "skinny" except maybe my toes. They are freakishly skinny, actually.

So I don't expect to slide into a size 1 and trot out of the store giddy about my purchase - that would only happen if I had spent the past two years eating a strict diet of celery and water.

And since I certainly have not limited my diet in such a way, I am forced to pour through the racks of jeans of a significantly larger digit. And yet when I step into the dressing room and realize even those will not accommodate my newly discovered bulges, I panic. How huge have I become?? When did this happen??

So I hang the jeans back on their plastic hangers and reach for the pants I wore into the store. Pants of the same size I was just attempting to fit into, mind you. Huh?! How is this possible?

I am disgusted with myself, vowing never to eat again.

As I turn away from the horrifying mirror and exit the dressing room, I'm aghast at the sight in front of me.

It's a woman. Putting a pair of jeans on the counter as she pulls out her credit card.

She found a pair that fit.

So I do what every woman does. I compare myself to her. I pretend to continue scanning the racks when I'm really scanning her thighs.

How come she found a pair that fit? She isn't skinny! She's pretty average, actually. She has curves, too!

It's taking every ounce of strength within me to hold myself back from charging the counter in order to grab those jeans and check the label for a size.

And then reality strikes me - I may very well be living in a land of Cinderellas. Maybe jeans fit every other woman but me!

So I accept defeat and walk out of the store.

Next time I'll just go to Target and see what Polly Pocket might have in the way of jeans. I guess my freakishly skinny toes are the only body part jeans-worthy.