I Feel Like an Old Asshole When I Shop

I am not a big fan of shopping. Old clothes are plenty fine with me. I never buy t-shirts, as I depend on getting them free or as a gift from large purchases on Bodybuilding.com. Up until this past weekend, I haven't bought a new pair of jeans since college. That was a decade ago. I have made my life as free of shopping as possible.

Still, there are certain things that I do need to get. At the top of that list is gym shorts. You can't have too many gym shorts, as one pair in every color seems like a worthwhile goal. And I ain't talking about no 8-Crayon pack of colors, I want to go at least 96. I am nowhere near this goal, but I am always on the lookout to add to my collection.

The only other thing I try to purchase are dress clothes. Looking fresh is simply what I do, but obviously, dress clothes are not nearly as important as gym shorts, so I have far less options.

At the mall, I can literally go to JC Penney and nothing else. I mean, am I really going to purchase anything at Hot Topic? No, and just stepping in the store would make me feel like a gigantic asshole. And stores like Abercrombie, Aeropostale, and American Eagle, I'm 90% positive that I am too old to be stepping in those stores and buying clothes among the teeny boppers that hang out there. Where do people like me shop? Outside of JC Penney, I'm not sure. Like, do I go into Eddie Bauer and get myself some khakis? That sounds a helluva lot more reasonable than getting me a skin-tight polo with a goddamned moose on it, yet I see people my age doing the latter far more than the former.

Since I am a cheap bastard (not literally), and a regular mall is not built for a man like me, I went to the next best thing, an outlet mall. Although I was able to get some gym and board shorts, I also had to waste a lot of time as my wife and I went together. She, like most ladies, is a much better shopper than her other half. This gave me a lot of time to waste, so I tried to go into stores that I thought cool people might purchase things at.

I went into an Oakley store, but I am far more likely to wear a pair of sunglasses that I randomly find than spending over $5 on a pair. Why do I need cool looking sunglasses? Yes, I live in a place where the sun shines year round, but who am I going to impress? It's not like my wife is going to be so turned on by my sunglasses game that she will find me irresistible. If she cared about things like that, we probably wouldn't be married.

I tried to go to stores like Guess and Tommy Hilfiger, figuring that is what adults wear. Well, I may be an adult, but even the outlet stores were laughably expensive for the crap they were selling. The worst was going in the Hanes store. I saw a cutout of Michael Jordan and figured I might be able to find some inexpensive boxer briefs. I walked in the store, and it was nothing but ladies' stuff. I looked around, saw no dude stuff in sight and slowly backed out of there, trying to get away before some lady yelled pervert at me.

Basically, I feel as if I am stuck in the middle. I'm too old for stores with college students, and I'm too young for Sears. It probably doesn't help that I don't like stuff, so I rarely have a reason to go to malls. But until I can get ideal gym shorts on Amazon, I am stuck venturing out and feeling like an asshole. I now know what Jesus felt like; this is my cross to bear.