Bellybuttons Pants

Middle of the week shopping is the domain of the retired and the unemployed. Go to the grocery store in the middle of the day on Thursday (the day after most grocery store ads come out) and the place will be over run by sit and shops. Clothes shopping in the middle of the day during the week is no exception. Kohl’s was inundated with septuagenarian shoppers, two of whom were happy to share their opinion of everything. A couple of sisters wandered through the store, their heads barely poking up above the racks of flared jeans.

Helen: Bellbottoms came back. Look at all of the bellbottoms, Marge.
Marge: Why do these pants look used? I’d be embarrassed to wear jeans that looked dirty and faded.

Marge: Are these those bellybutton pants?
Helen: I don’t know, Marge. Try them on.

And then over in the sweaters…

Helen: Why are these sleeves so long?
Marge: They wear them that way nowadays.
Helen: I just don’t understand.
Marge: Well, our arms are short, Helen.

I wonder how long ago it was that Marge and Helen got out of the house. Flared jeans have been in the stores for at least the past six years, right? It was quite a while ago since I saw a young man wearing actual bellbottoms. The hem of each leg was about the circumference of a hoola hoop, and the fashion-minded blockhead ran across the street and fell on his face. He did manage to get up before he became hippy road pizza. (A teenager was tragically killed today for being fashion-conscious. Wardrobe malfunction or fashion disaster? News at 11.) I hope Marge and Helen weren’t so out of the loop because they were retirement home escapees.