Buckle up!

Earlier today I was talking to my good friend Betsy and we were recapping our weekends for each other when I mentioned that I had gone to this store Buckle and bought some jeans. After conversing for a few more minutes, we come to find out that we each had eerily similar experiences in the store. That got me thinking that maybe I should write a blog about it to warn others of their practices before the poor shlubs set foot in the store.

First of all let me say that whoever came up with the retail marketing plan for Buckle is a friggin' genius and I hope they get/got paid an obscene amount of money for their services. You will find out why in the proceeding paragraphs.

With my tax refund in hand, I decided to take a little trip to Cool Springs Mall and buy myself a little happy. It has always seemed to me that saving money is for losers. I would rather have cute jeans or download 50 songs from iTunes than be a responsible adult. Actually, I am an 80% responsible adult, because I had a conversation with myself beforehand where I said, "Listen, fuckface (my pet name for myself), you only get to spend 20% of this money on frivolous stuff. The rest goes to charity -- ha ha! Just kidding. Charity, smarity." My inner voice is a selfish bitch.

So me and my inner voice are strolling along past the stores I had no interest in and on my way to Sears to clothes shop (that's a joke) I saw this neat little store called Buckle. It wasn't as off-putting as other youth-oriented stores (e.g. Abercrombie with their half naked gay men ads, Hollister with their "unce unce" music, Aeropostale with their size 0 and below, etc.). I enter this Buckle and immediately fall in love with a cute hoodie I see hanging, haunting me with its longing gaze. After glancing at the price tag and deciding it would not be in my best interest to buy a hoodie for $75, I commenced looking at their plentiful supply of jeans. You have to understand that for me to spend over $40 on jeans ever, they have to either be able to make me lose weight or make me a vanilla soy latte with extra foam. As far as I could tell, these Buckles could not do either. I was about to leave when a girl who I can only assume will be starring in "High School Musical 3: Tramp Stamp!" accosted me. I don't recall her name, but I am guessing it was something like Princess or Sparkle or something. She started bombarding me with questions when I said I had never been there before. How tall are you? What size do you wear? Where do you usually buy your jeans? Will you sign my yearbook? She scared me. But I got even when I told her I usually buy jeans at Old Navy...her face looked like something out of "Blair Witch Project."

When Sparkle finished her interrogation, I was holding about 10 pairs of jeans that I don't remember picking up at all -- I think they just appeared. She shoved me into a dressing room next to Britney and Tiffany, who were oh ma gah-ing over some text message. I freed my arms of the 50 pounds of denim into the chair in the room. Something was wrong with this dressing room. What the hell is wrong with this dressing room? Right. There are NO MIRRORS. WTF? The mirror was outside the room. I should have turned around and run as fast as I could. But I am pretty sure Sparkle had planted a GPS tracking device on me somewhere while she distracted me with her confusing sizes and jean names ("Sinful Angel Wing Jean"? Really, Papi?).

I start to try on the jeans and I swear I don't even have one full leg in one pair and I hear Sparkle, "Hey, Amanda (they ask you your name when you come in)!!!!!!!!!! How are those working for you?" I inform her that I need a little more time. "OK, sweetie. I'll check back in with you!!!!!!!" Joy. The first three pairs are duds, mostly because of this weird thing I have where I prefer the world to not see my ass crack. I know, I'm strange. The next pair were so bad that I had to call my friends at Camel Towing to free me. At this point I realize that it is about 100 degrees in the store. Beads of sweat are rolling down my forehead. I walk out of the dressing room with a pair on to look in the mirror (did I mention that they did not have mirrors in the dressing room? I did?). In case the muffin top didn't clue me in that the jeans were too tight, Sparkle came farting by to offer, "Now remember, they will stretch!!!!!!" Thanks for making my brown eyes blue, Sparkle.

So, here I am in this dressing room sweating to death, wearing jeans that are too tight and too long that I really can't afford. I find myself plotting my escape because I know that Sparkle has probably staked out all exits and has her taser ready if I try to leave without purchasing anything. I feel beat down, manipulated, harassed, abused and misled. I think about calling my congressman or the embassy. Is Buckle a third-world country? Finally I decide that there is no way out other than to buy a $70 pair of jeans (the cheapest, by the way). I tell Sparkle to ring them up for me. Then she informs me of their awesome layaway plan, so if I wanted to pick out a couple more, I could put down some money and come back and buy them later. Huh? Someone please explain to me how a clothing store has a layaway plan. Oh right, because you could feed a family of four for a week with the money you pay for one pair of jeans.

I politely declined her layaway offer and shoved my credit card in her face, eager to leave this troubled world behind. I thought for a second that when she swiped my card that Buckle instantly new everything about me from my favorite color to the date of my last bowel movement. Sparkle handed me my solid 14K gold jeans in a a cheap silver bag when what I really wanted was a hard shell briefcase with handcuffs. I took my package and got the hell out of there. I couldn't help but marvel at how they duped me into buying something I wasn't sure of in the first place. My feelings of gullibility flooded over me and I vowed never to purchase from the evil Buckle again.

OMG! You should see this cute pair on buckle.com that I just found!! Hmmmm...they do have layaway...