Shopping for Pants at Kohl's

If my choice is between getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick or going shopping I will go shopping, but I would much prefer visiting the dentist. I shop only when there is no other choice, which became the case when I finally acknowledged that I have become shorter.

I had vaguely wondered why the cuffs of my pants were fraying so rapidly, and Susan finally noted that it might have something to do with the fact that they were dragging on the ground. The arthritic deterioration in my spine that has caused various unpleasant symptoms in recent years has now taken an inch or two of height from me. I needed an entire new pants wardrobe, so I steeled myself and headed for Kohl’s.

For those who do not know it, Kohl’s is a discount department store that sells decent-quality merchandise at reasonable prices and always has some sort of sale going. They regularly send us promotional material that requires us to peel off a sticker to learn the amount of our “special discount,” and on the most recent one we had won the Kohl’s lottery with the enviable 30% discount. Armed with my discount card I headed for Kohl’s on a Wednesday, which is Senior Discount Day, when everyone over the age of 60 gets an additional 15% off. My mission was to find pants that were already on sale and then take another 45% off the price. What could possibly go wrong?

I tried on a fair number of pants, most of which hung on my thin frame like burlap sacks. The fit categories appear to have shifted in the last few years. What they now call “natural fit” are pants that used to be called “relaxed fit,” and the trousers they now call “relaxed fit” should be called “bordering on obese fit.” I finally located a few pairs of “thin fit” pants in my new size, and, since I was going to get 45% off everything, also purchased a shirt and a few birthday gifts for our grandson.

Except when I got to the register I learned that my 30% discount card was not good until the next Monday (I failed to read the fine print), so I received only my senior discount. But I did get twenty “Kohl’s Dollars,” part of another promotion they were running. Since I still needed to replace my jeans, I would simply come back on Monday to get my 30% discount and spend my Kohl’s Dollars.

On Monday I found some jeans – in the “hip, urban young guy” department, which remarkably enough had a nice selection of thin fit Levis 511s (“second pair half price!”). When I took them to the register I received my 30% discount but learned that my Kohl’s Dollars were not good until Thursday (another failure to read the fine print). And to get my 30% discount I had to put the jeans on my Kohl’s account, which I did not have. I opened an account, purchased my jeans, and received – take a deep breath - another ten Kohl’s Dollars.

On Thursday I returned to Kohl’s with the thirty Kohl’s Dollars and my still-valid 30% discount card, determined not to let the Kohl’s Dollars expire, only to discover there was nothing in the entire store I wanted or needed. I picked out six pairs of nice socks, but since they were on sale I was still only halfway to my thirty Kohl’s Dollars. Which means that our grandson is going to have a very nice birthday.
I am done shopping for the foreseeable future. But the next time I need something from Kohl’s I plan to read all the fine print. Or take my accountant.