Somebody..... please......

Oh hot dang, the 99th follower just clicked herself in! I am so excited!!!! Why? Because that is ONE away from 100, which is the number I have baselessly determined will make me COOL!!!! 

Please, someone please, make yourself up a little google thingy and be the 100th! If I had a prize I would offer it as an official bribe. Does anyone want 3 pounds of ground beef accidentally left in the fridge for a week passed it's expiriation date? How about the matching hamburger buns that turned a lovely shade of blue?

Okay, I got it, how about if I promise NOT to send those things out to anyone. Is that a better idea?

For the love of cabbage people, please don't anyone "unfollow". Just in the immediate future, not for the rest of your life. Here is a little story about how cool I am not. (I mean, not yet. Hopefully soon!)

So, The Husband and I are in So- Be, which is how the cool people refer to South Beach, which is actually Miami Beach in Florida. Right, I don't do math or geography I just know I went to the beach. Okay, I spotted the most beautiful black leather jacket in a Benetton store window and left a trail of drool slime behind me walking in. Like a lemming (what the hell is a lemming anyway, a fish?) I was to that gorgeous jacket. It was a tad bit biker-ish with zippers and metal all over it. A little flair of Members Only with scarf snaps on the shoulder. That nice soft, smooth leather, with a nice soft lining. Pockets all over. It was stunning and when I tried it on, I was still a midwestern stay at home mom, but now I was wearing a totally cool black leather jacket. It was made for me I tell you. I don't care how many "units" were procured by the Benetton people in however many sizes, this jacket was for me. It was fitted in all the right places and long enough in other good places. Beautiful.

The Husband didn't like it. While that in itself would never make- or- break a decision for me, it made a dent. See, this is a man who likes a mandarin collar on his dress shirts. Sigh. Or a white collar on an otherwise colored shirt. Sigh- convulse- sigh. Spontaneously I decided I would ask the sales man. Surely, the sales man is being paid to tell people they look fabulous in every bit of fabric ever stitched together by the small children of Guam. Right? I mean this had to net me about  the cleanest guarantee ever in history of being told how sharp and snazzy I was looking in that beautiful jacket! Either the man was on commission, or the company was paying him hourly to sell their stuff right? Can't lose!

Lose I did. Yikes. I approached, a little excited, and I asked my question in that tone of voice that says I already know your answer, do you think this jacket works on me? Hmmm, he said, as he flipped his hip to the side and planted his arms cross-ways over his chest. He looked me over in great detail and then I realized what he was seeing. I watched him, and I realized he was not going to say, wow you are so hot in that jacket you mid-western stay at home mom you! He was seeing the inch of gray and brown hair that I didn't have time to touch up. The make up that I just barely bothered slapping on. I remembered earrings but the silver plating was starting to crust off in the back. I bet he noticed that. My plain t-shirt and my Steve and Barry's shorts from before they went bankrupt 2 years ago. Most assuredly he was noting a rupture of a hair on my leg, on the outside of the ankle where it grows a lot faster for some reason. The hair on my head clearly outgrown and untrimmed, the bangs a d-i-y job on the fly. My comfortable shoes that I love.

It occurred to me that he was not just thinking how un- hot I looked, he could not even bring himself to pretend and just say it for the commission. He thought he was better than me. A lot better. So much better he couldn't even see me in the land of the un-better from his perch at the top of his better than me tree. Just because he could match his black shirt to his black pants and his black shoes and he works at what is apparently a 24-hour Benetton. So I screamed.

"You think you are better than me because you can match 2 colors of black and shave your head? Maybe you are, maybe you are better than me but if you are it's not because you can dress yourself. It's not because your head is bald and my head has an inch of outgrowth from a home dye job. Being an employee of the cool place where all the awesome pretty clothes live doesn't make you better. When we both leave here we will leave the pretty world of all this wonderful stuff and we will both just be two plain people and who is better will remain to be seen. Maybe it's you, maybe it's not. But you don't know so stop looking at me like that !!!"

Well, maybe I just screamed that in my head. And, maybe it was after the fact. The fact being, that he blankly and blandly scrutinized me from head to toe and said without expression, "eh. It looks okay".

I went and looked back in the mirror. It was a beautiful jacket. Made of "eco- leather" whatever that is. Donated altruistically by happy cows I imagine. I put it back on the hanger and we left.

Now how un-cool is that? But see, if I can get to 100 followers, and maybe a few extra just in case of if some people are extra partial to Benetton and decide to excuse themselves, then I can be cool in my head and in my computer. I am not opposed to anyone making up a second personality just to do it. I didn't say that. Ahem.