Black

It almost goes without saying that children make you feel your age. Lately, though, I’ve been hypersensitive to the passing time.

Guys tend to buy clothing as needed, as opposed to “shopping” for clothes. The other day, I needed to buy some jeans, so I went to Target. Since when did I go to Target to buy clothing? Scanning the wall of denim in various shades of black or blue, in various cuts of slim or baggy, my eyes tracked the price tags. I didn’t buy the cheapest pair, but I had a flashback to a time in my mid-teens when I was desperate for a pair of Levi’s 501 button-fly jeans. And you would only buy them at Miller’s Outpost, nowhere else would do. My parents didn’t get it.

Now, I’m at Target, ignoring the branding and just looking for a cut that wouldn’t embarrass me. The jeans that I chose were actually less expensive than the 501’s of 20+ years ago, even after those years of inflation.

In a decade or so, I’ll be taking CJ shopping and she’s going to be pushing for her 501’s, and I’ll have to search for an analogous desire to achieve some degree of empathy. Becky excels at empathy. Perhaps I can outsource that to her.