Fashionable? Mostly not. Moron? Yes.

I was flattered when Goslyn made the comment that she thinks I am fashionable. Flattered, but feeling a little bit guilty. This summer I had a little experience that left me feeling like the biggest wannabe. It's a story about a belt.

I have spent the last year searching for a really great belt. I wrote about it before, but I am having a hard time finding it in the archives. Plus, I'm too lazy to dig for it. Anyway, my sister, who has the spiritual gift of shopping, found a great one for me. I love it and I wear it all the time. It's a brown belt with a peacock feather shaped buckle that is covered in rhinestones in various shades of greens. The buckle is removable and sometimes I replace it with a big honkin bull rider buckle I got from my brother. Bullrider buckle = awesome.

Back to the story.

One day I was in our little local grocery store. This is the store where my father-in-law worked when he was a teenager, where Nate worked, and where all three of my brothers have worked. It's a lovely little store with narrow aisles and a strict employee dress code. The girl who was checking me out was an adorable thing who stays up on all of the latest fashions. I'm sure she owns more than ten pairs of skinny jeans. So she looks down at my belt and says casually "Cute belt". I am glowing. Then she asks "Where did you get it?" This is the part where I am trying to decide how un-cool it would be to reveal that I didn't actually buy the belt myself, my sister bought it for me since I am obviously incapable of doing my own shopping. I throw caution to the wind and tell her that it was something my sister picked up for me. But even more appalling is the fact that I have completely drawn a blank on the name of the store. "I think it starts with an M." Now all of the cashier girls are throwing out their guesses and yet none of them are ringing a bell. It's on the tip of my tongue. "It's that really dark store. The one with loud music." was all that I could come up with. "Hot Topic?" nope....um, I'll think of it any minute, just keep scanning those groceries.

I suddenly realized that the name of the store was printed on the inside of the belt. Even though I couldn't picture the exact letters, I remembered the font and the color. A lot of good that did me. And I am ashamed to admit, that I actually contemplated taking my belt OFF in the middle of the store so that I could tell her the name of the store where I got my uber-cool belt. The belt that was obviously out of place on me, a loser that was willing to strip down in the middle of a family grocery store. I think she could read my mind because she comforted me. "It's ok, it's no big deal." And in my head I am screaming "Of course it's a big deal! Don't you know how cool I am that I am wearing a belt from this awesome store that I can't even think of the name of, but it is awesome and I am awesome because I have this belt on even though I wear it every single day and I didn't even buy it myself!"

Oh my gosh. Loser.

So I paid for my groceries and I went to the car and you can guess what I did as soon as the carryout boy shut the trunk. I took off my belt and I looked at the gold letters stamped on the inside.

HOLLISTER.

And then I resisted the urge to throw open the car door and sprint back into the store and scream at the top of my lungs over the intercom: "HOLLISTER! The belt is from Hollister."

It doesn't even have an M in it. But moron does.