that’s right. this post really is about the most boring shirt you ever saw. the image isn’t just a clever metaphor for some deeper statement about the comfort of blandness in our ever-complicated world. this is literally just a story about the un-fucking-believable lengths i went to this morning to be a good mom, and the shock and awe i experienced doing so. check back later if you’re looking for social commentary, y’all.
a couple weeks ago, when Miss Girl came home singing “i’m a mean old lion . . . rawr!” and i found out that her Pre-K class was taking the role of Lion in The Wiz for the school musical, i was beside myself. The Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite movies ever and i have always loved The Wiz on sidebar, as a child of the 80s, Michael Jackson lover and huge fan of Diana Ross, whose early years in Motown i kind of idolized and who was obvs a beloved mentor to MJ. so i was super psyched about childhood memories and cultural diversity the selection brings out.
for the past couple weeks, i’ve glowed over all this — have loved Miss Girl’s occasional song break-out (though, like me, she can’t carry a tune in a bucket) and even hosted the first-grader next door (whose class song is No Bad News) to actually watch The Wiz on a Saturday movie night, complete with several dance party moments for those songs, as well as Ease On Down the Road (obvs) and a couple other of the most catchy tunes. The Wiz is so much more danceable than the original. go figure.
all this time, it was in the back of my head that i’d gotten an email saying everyone needs to wear “brown” from head to toe for the show and there would be some kind of lion mane and tail attached. i mean there 1,000 shades of “brown.” ugh. but khaki uniform pants were deemed okay, so i figured a khaki shirt to match would work and must be the easiest thing on the planet to find. i could get around to that.
fast forward to Sunday morning. T-3 days and counting until the big show. Amazon must have a thousand different options, i thought. a basic khaki or tan t-shirt, what could be easier to find? click, click, click . . . click . . . click . . . wtf? no really. what the . . . i was coming up with nothing. girls’ shirts. boys shirts. a basic khaki tee i couldn’t get on Prime? um, no. i am an avid Amazon shopper — the evidence is in the 4 boxes i received this weekend with no idea what was in them (i might be seeking a group for help with this. whatevs.) i basically never buy anything i can’t get on Prime because the only reason i order from Amazon is i need this shit now (i mean, or tomorrow). otherwise, i would take Spy’s ridiculous advice this morning and “just go out and find it.” sound of a thousand hyenas laughing. really? on a rainy Sunday in Atlanta, you want me to drive around and pop into somewhere and just hope they have this one very specific thing? i love this man, but he has no idea how retail works.
so i widened my circle. (Google it yourself. i dare you. it’s not pretty.) i was teased with a $39 Polo shirt that didn’t actually exist in anything close to brown/khaki/tan/oatmeal when i got to the site. multiple items that weren’t even close. then these assholes wanted to charge me $115 to overnight ship a $4 Hanes t-shirt. i kid you not. i didn’t really investigate, but assume they were shipping it to me from the moon. again, wtf? i looked at Target, Old Navy, all the usual suspects . . . finally, finally i checked into Gap . . .
finally, i found the star of this post. vaguely the right color to match khaki uniform pants. more than $4 cost, but less than $115 shipping. sold. finally, like 45 minutes later (welcome to my Sunday morning) and like $40 with product cost and 2-day shipping (for a shirt she will never wear again), i hope to have this damn thing in time. nobody tell Miss Girl it’s actually a boys’ shirt. but really, should this have been that hard? should finding the most boring, plain shirt on the planet have taken more than 5 minutes of my time? ugh. we subsequently got an email and link from the class parents for a Prime-available chocolate brown t-shirt. is a lion chocolate brown? no! but i ordered that one, too, just in case.
whatever happens, and whichever shirt arrives in time, i’m sure Miss Girl will be amazing on Wednesday morning. how could she not ? as the crappy, last-minute mom, i’m just interested in seeing who’s wearing what so i can totally judge/feel better about my slack-ass ways. stay tuned . . .