Anyone who lives or has been to Atlanta lately knows that it has been unseasonably cold. As I have said in previous posts, I don't have a lot of cold-weather clothes or coats. I have a lightweight leather jacket that is so fitted I can't wear it with anything bulky; an Old Navy hoodie; and a long, wool, dress coat. I have nothing that I can wear on really cold, non-dress up days.Early last week, my mom played the pity card and asked my grandmother/her mother if she would buy me a new jacket or coat when I came home, and my grandmother said that she would. However, now that I'm here, she's trying to do anything but get me a new coat. At Thanksgiving, she tried to give me this barn jacket (i.e. a plaid flannel shirt with stuffing) that my father gave my great grandfather way back in 1974 or 1975; this long, black leather coat that was my great grandmother's from circa 1985 (can you say Shaft anyone?), or an old fur coat of hers, again from the 80's. I turned down the first two coats graciously and the last one not so graciously. I've seen the PETA video on The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency of how they make fur coats. They don't kill the animals before they skin them alive; they just break their backs. I'm an animal lover. I wouldn't be caught dead in a fur coat. I'd rather go buy me a ratty old coat at Goodwill.
After I turned down the freebies, my grandmother offered to buy me a coat from Rose's, not from Belk's or JCPenney's as she had previously suggested before Thanksgiving. The coats were a whopping $10 on sale so I'm guessing they weren't very warm or high quality. The coat would probably disintegrate five minutes after I put it on, assuming that I could make it five minutes. No offense to Rose's elsewhere, but the one in this town smells like a cross between bad body odor, lemon Pledge, and rose-scented Lysol. I can't even wear perfume without my throat swelling shut so I doubt that I could wear any clothes from there. Considering the fact that my grandmother has four closets full of designer clothes, the least that she could have done was suggested Walmart or Target.
Since it was in the 20's last night, I spent several hours today trying on every jacket and coat that Belk's, JCPenney's, Goody's, and Cato's sells and finally found one that I wanted at Penney's. All of their outerwear is marked down 60 percent, plus you can get another 15 percent off the price if you use your Penney's card. I came home, called, and asked my grandmother once again if she was going to get me a new jacket. Before I could even tell her that I had found one at Penney's, she tried to get me to take a coat that my mother had worn in high school. My mom graduated in 1972 so do the math on how old the coat is. I had to lay on the pity routine pretty thickly to convince my grandmother that I really needed this coat (the one from Penney's), not that coat (the one that's older than I am). She eventually agreed that I needed a new one. I just hope that she doesn't have a brain fart for dinner and forgets that she did before I can go get the charge card.
Seriously, is it too much to ask of a grandmother that her granddaughter be able to wear a coat that wasn't made around the time that Nixon was president or The Breakfast Club was still on the big screen? Granted, the last time that my curly hair was in style was the 80's, but that doesn't mean that I want a jacket from back then. If my grandmother changes her mind yet again, maybe she can go through my grandfather's old clothes and see if he has a Members Only jacket that I can wear. A Member's Only jacket would be like totally tubular, and it would be like so awesome with the mall rat bangs that I would have to like totally get cut in my hair. I could even like grow out my hair to wear a like totally awesome side ponytail with it and then like audition for a Whitesnake video...or not.
Like I said, I need a new jacket, not a trip back in time. So, Nana, put the keys to the Delorean away and just hand over the credit card.
