By Grace Moore
Screenshot from my phone of what it looks like when you look up JNCO Jeans on Depop. (Grace Moore/Radio 1190)
“What you need… is a pair of JNCO Jeans” I thought to my ever so familiar reflection in the mirror. “Yeah that’ll fix this, not a trip to the dermatologist, a pair of cool, alt jeans.”
Step one was obviously to look up “JNCO jeans, y2k fashion” on pinterest, and, as suspected, everything was so cool. I was gonna look so skinny in pants that weren’t made to realistically fit anyone. It was perfect! I thought that while my life sucked, there were at least five problems these jeans were going to fix.
So after some reassurance from pinterest I went on depop. I knew from a lifetime of being super cool that they’d definitely have some really awesome JNCO’s there. “Wow, and only a click away!” I thought as I peered into the blue light of my phone screen.
I was searching and searching until I found the perfect pair, big but not too big, colorful, but not so many colors that they wouldn’t go with anything. They were perfect. Naturally, I did what I always do and pressed the “make an offer” button. You know when Grace Moore presses that “make an offer” button on depop it is about to be the most insane lowball you’ve ever seen. In this case I felt justified. The point of JNCO’s is that they’re ugly. I didn’t want to pay over $50 for them. After I made my world record lowball offer, I went to my friend Mae’s dorm. I told her to make an offer for the pants I just made an offer on except for five dollars lower so that the seller would think that this was a more accurate price for the jeans. A few hours later Mae and I both got notifications that both of our offers had been declined.
“Stupid depop resellers!” We exclaimed. “God, it’s like there’s starving children in Africa and you have the audacity to charge 64$ for some pair of pants! That money better be going directly to the underpaid worker that made them!” I sounded off endlessly. “Do these stupid 15 year old boys know what they’re doing to the economy!” I kept going, I couldn’t stop, these pants were really becoming a lifeline, and it felt like they were being taken away from me.
I had a decision to make. Was I going to spend $64 on a pair of pants, or was I going to pick the reasonable option, and decide that these pants would make me look like a lesbian. “How will a hot skater boy ever love me if he thinks I look better in his jeans than he does?”
“I should really just save my money,” I pleaded with my internal primal urge to gather.
I opened my bank account as if that would discourage me. It didn’t. Nothing could. I had more than enough money to buy them and I’m the world’s worst saver. I tried to remember all the horrible times I had at my lifeguarding job trying to pull myself off this ledge. There was the time I had to get poop out of the towel bin, or the multiple times I had to be there at 6:30 am, or my infamous beef with Mrs. Tuerk. The list goes on and on when you spend your summer at the evil institution that is the LaGrange Country Club.
But despite all this I wasn’t convinced. I love spending money, and what was all that for if I wasn’t gonna enjoy it? I mean come on, relax, live a little. So I bought the jeans. Capitalism prevails! I waited in an all time high anticipation.
I walked around with a new pep in my step, there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and it came in the form of a package at the William’s Village UPS Store.
I waited and waited until finally, I got the notification: “Grace Moore, your package is ready for pickup.”
“Yippee!” I’m a new woman, reborn as something I’d never been before: happy, excited, maybe even joyful. This is it! My life as an angry hater is over! I’m going to feel joy in my heart for the first time! It’s going to happen for me, my time in the sun, finally, it’s here! A hop, skip, and a jump later I’m in the Williams Village UPS store trying to act casual.
“Be chill Grace, you’re a JNCO jeans owner now, you’ve gotta be ‘lax, girl.” My internal monologue was right, and I was pulling it off with ease. No one in the UPS store even suspected that I am in no way “‘lax”. The frizzy haired worker I always see there called out my name and before I knew it my brand spankin new jeans were all mine! I basically ran to my dorm. I was walking so fast. I opened my door, and sat down at my desk, and ripped open that box like it was a blueberry muffin and I hadn’t eaten in days. I opened the box and put on the jeans and looked in the mirror – and nothing.
My same reflection I’ve always had peered back at me. I was still a loser virgin and of course, still me. The look of disappointment on my face was bigger than the jeans themselves. And I was right: I did look like a lesbian.
“Stupid, stupid , stupid.” I said out loud as if my not-virgin roommate wasn’t sitting a mere 6 feet away from me.
“It’ll never be my time in the sun.” I thought to myself. I knew that, I’ve always known that. I’m just not that type of person, someone that understands enjoying things and doesn’t have some inexplicable addiction to suffering.
I guess you can never run away, you can never expect your problems to be solved by ignoring them. You have to trudge through, and now it’s even harder because I have to trudge through them in JNCO jeans and these things weigh like ten pounds.