The Trials Of Aging--and U2!

We're going to the U2 concert tonight, Mr. Sweetie and I! Did I mention that we're going to see U2? Oh, and we're going to U2 tonight.

I did not want to go as Mini Van Mom with my wardrobe of comfy clothes perfect for a trip to the grocery store or Target before picking the kids up from school. I wanted something a little more--hip. You know. Cool-ish. I'm a mom. There's a limit to how cool I can be, and I know that. I don't want to look like I'm wearing a costume either--it's a bit too far from Halloween to pull THAT off, and a yet close enough for that to be a possible danger.

So, I went shopping yesterday for a jeans jacket. That would work, right? Just a simple, preferable faded, denim jacket that I can wear to blend into a hip nighttime crowd. Is that asking too much?

Alas, it seems so. I traipsed all over the MallDale (prior to the Mega Mall, all our shopping malls were surnamed "Dale") and found destroyed denim, designer embroidered denim, nipped, tailored, and teeny tiny denim jackets, but no plain, classic jackets. There were some that were so tiny they were designed to cover only the collarbones--but with long sleeves.

Where is a County Seat Levis(TM) store when you need one?

You know, when you don't shop the fashion stores, they change on you. Wasn't Abercrombie & Fitch once a bastion of preppy athletics? You know, yachting caps and crew paddles and Old Money fashion? And Banana Republic was once casual chic clothing. Now they both look just like each other, with loud music.

I mean LOUD MUSIC. REALLY REALLY LOUD MUSIC! SO LOUD THE STAFF HAS BEEN RENDERED INSENSIBLE AND THUS IS OF NO HELP WHATSOEVER. PLUS, THE MUSIC IS MOSTLY REMAKES OF SONGS THAT WERE BAD THE FIRST TIME 30 YEARS AGO, AND I KNOW BECAUSE I WAS THERE THE FIRST TIME. ADDING HOUSE-TECHNO BEATS DOES NOT IMPROVE IT.

I FINALLY found one at The Gap. The music there was not good, but at least it did not cause bleeding from the ears. I know there is a generational thing, and I am the wrong generation for the new Banana Republic and A&F. That's okay, really. But isn't there something a little--oh, I don't know--cynical--about corporate policy setting the "hip" music standard? You know it wasn't just the guys working retail who turned the music up that loud.

I'd have liked it better--really! I would have--if I could just even have pretended that one of the stock guys brought in some totally awesome speakers from his basement and set them up after hours, and one of the sweater folding girls had sneaked in her totally bootleg cut of some band that is virtually unknown outside this one club in Glasgow.

Sadly, guys in suits at corporate headquarters shipping out anonymous techno pop doesn't feel cool to me.

But U2? THAT'S cool, baby.