To Won Foo, Thanks For Everything!

So it's been a little while since my last post, and again I could sit here and make an apology or whatever, but to be honest, there is probably only 25 people who read this thing TOTAL, so... no I do not feel bad. I must write when inspired.

Today's Topic is the Wonderful World of Drag!

I've always been interested in the culture of Drag Queens. I mean who didn't as a gay child try on/want to try on their mother's bra or play in her makeup growing up, and if you say you didn't, you're a goddamn liar.

Personally, i've always believed makeup up to be an art form. I remember watching my mother put her makeup on when I was a child. It almost seemed like a religious practice, like Tai Chi or something. Moving meditation. The swirls of the brush, the stroke of the eyeliner, all this carefully calculated movement to transform yourself. Everybody feels better in makeup, and even the gay men in my life are known to have a secret concealer stick or some eyeliner in their Medicine Cabinet.  Makeup has always been something i've been a very big fan of, and unfortunately, i've never been very good at it. I am sure if I went to classes and spent some money, I COULD be, but I am most definitely one of those people that unless I instantly pick up something or get a knack fairly quickly, I become VERY discouraged or uninterested. But that's just me. But that being said, i've always been a fan.

I have also ALWAYS loved Drag Queen, even at a young age, when the concept was completely mind boggling and out of my frame of reference at the time. I remember as a boy watching RuPaul's talk show on VH1 at night. I remember that everybody said he was a man in real life, but when I looked at him, all I saw was a woman. Actually, all I saw was a character, like some mythological creature, that was tall and beautiful, gawdy and spectacular and I remember being in awe.

It was about this time that I would lock myself in the bathroom and rifle through my mother's makeup bag, painting myself, trying the foundation, the makeup, the eyeliner, trying to make myself look, well...I didn't really know, I just wanted to see what I looked like with it on. That really was the extent of my gender exploration.

There was a time in my life where I really considered the option that I had been born in the wrong gender. My entire childhood I had always preferred the girls toys, shows, accessories, etc. to that of any boy's. I chalked most of that up to my upbringing, unfortunately, though many tried, there was never a truly strong MALE figure in my life. I was raised and surrounded by only women; My Mother, My Grandmother, My Mother's Best Friend and her three daughters, my female cousin and my little sister. It was a women's world and for a long time that really confused me. Thankfully, after a long soul searching, I realized that the way I thought and what I knew of my world was because of my environment, and that is really something I am thankful for because I get to be a Man in this world and yet still understand what women are going through, which makes my relationship with women VERY strong.

So now that my Lifetime Moment is out of the way, let's flash forward 15 years or so in the future and visit the well adjusted sassy and fun Brandon, shall we?

In the town I live in, Drag seems to really be a dying artform. The people who were doing it have been doing it for years and almost hermitized themselves from the Gay Community altogether. It's sad, because I know there is youth out there that could really USE something from Drag, that could really find a home, or find themselves in it. THANKFULLY, I feel our community, despite recent events, is rebuilding it's drag army.

This is in large part, thanks to a local Drag Queen named Mini Merna. Mini is a go getter, she performs all over town, hosts local events, does fundraising and is one of the biggest faces in Drag in Chico, and we love her for it. Mini is tacky, fun, and always puts on a show!

There is also another Queen, Veronica Lakeside who has really been stepping up her game and has started HEADLINING Shows around town.

So, there is momentum building, and it's people like them, who have the courage to be who THEY are that CHALLENGE us to be who WE are.

After getting closer to Mini Merna/Jeremi and watching a few shows around town, I couldn't help but get the Drag Itch. I've seen some pretty tragic people get up on stage, and bless their hearts, they gave it an honest effort, but it wasn't what I was seeing on TV or in other cities, and change only happens slowly. It wasn't until a friend of mine who is now the delicious Amanda Reckonwith started doing drag that I thought, MAYBE just maybe I would do it, and so impulsively after receiving an invite to a Drag Event on Facebook, I hastily said I would come in Drag and perform.

I was not prepared for the whirlwind the next few days would be. I was not a drag queen. I had no wig, no clothes, no makeup, no name, no CLUE! But I dove in head first and tried to make the best of it.

I entered the Dragulator (AKA Mini Merna's Closet) and through an EXTREME amount of help from her as well as some well timed shopping, luck and purchases on my part, I was able to release the Queen inside of me, but let me tell ya honey, it is WORK.

I decided on the name Bessie Mae Mucho. Mostly because I thought it was hilarious. I wanted to pattern my drag character as a cross between Suzanne Sugarbaker from Designing Women, Blance Deveraux from Golden Girls, and Maxine, that old lady from all the greeting cards in the 90's, and basically I came out with an Ex Pageant Queen with a Southern Accent, an Affinity for Jesus, and a sharp tongue.

The hours leading up to the show I was a HOT MESS. I had decided to get ready at a friend's house, left my makeup at home, left the belt I wanted at home, frantically drove across town to get said items, failed MISERABLY at my makeup, and almost had a nervous breakdown. The hardest part about drag HAS to be the makeup. Believe me, I watched at least 30 drag makeup tutorials on youtube, and for whatever reason, it did not translate from the video to my face. At the last minute, my friend mentioned that we had a makeup artist living next door, and 10 minutes later, I was in a dress, my titties out having this girl do my makeup. An hour later, my best friend Jon was holding my boobs and DUCT taping around them to make my cleave, and 20 minutes after that, my new best friend and makeup artist put the final touches on my face and gave me a Tiara to wear that was FAR better than the one I had originally decided to wear. Bessie Mae Mucho was ALIVE and READY.. for the most part...

I was insanely nervous on the drive TO the bar but when we got there, thanks to all my community theater experience I was able to transcend that and BE Bessie Mae Mucho. I handed Veronica Lakeside my CD and put my name on the roster, I had nothing left to do...but WAIT.

An hour or so later I heard Veronica Lakeside call "Bessie Mae MACHO!" .... *fail* and I got up on that stage. The performance was a blur. I lip synched "Fancy" by Reba McEntire. I was completely in character. I shook my boobies, I lifted my skirt up and I delivered FIERCENESS and HILARITY. I made 20 bucks from my performance and the crowd seemed to love it. Mini Merna came up to me and said "You know how they say when you got it, you got it? Well YOU have got it!" And I felt really good.

I didn't want to go up on stage and be a man in a dress because I felt that would be disrespectful to the ARTISTS that do this for a living, I wanted to BE something, I wanted to reach that level, and I think..I think I did.

My partner was proud of me but remotely reserved and nervous about it, because I know I will definitely at some point, do this again. He is a person of the addage "I want to date a MAN, not a WOMAN." and to him and to others out there like it, I will say THIS:

I don't think there is anything sexier or manlier than somebody able to get up in front of God and everybody and walk in their truth. I am a Man SO comfortable with myself and my sexuality, that I got up in PUBLIC, in a DRESS, with my boobs coated in SO much Duct Tape I have MARKS still from it, in a WIG, in FULL Makeup, and I performed. My manliness, and my sense of manhood is not TIED into what I wear, or how I look, but how I feel. I say what I mean and I mean what I say, and to me, THAT is a man, and when I took that dress off, when I took all those accessories of me, I was still the same person inside, I was still a man, I just got to explore a side that many MEN themselves are afraid to explore, and I had FUN with it. I respected the CRAFT that it is, and I think I am a better person and MAN for having experienced it... So pretty much, kiss my balls on that one if anyone wants to view me as girly, or womanlike. Get the fuck over it. Life is a Drag, and sometimes it's a Drag QUEEN.

Peace. Love. Dorothy.

Coming Out Stories: Brandon

 Disclaimer: What you are about to read is what I am hoping to be a regular series on my blog which I have called "Coming Out Stories". This is an effort to promote awareness and support to STOP the bullying of LGBTQ Youth as well as an effort to inspire those that may be afraid to walk in their truth and be who they are. I will be posting each story as I get them, and I hope you will enjoy. Here is my OWN story:

I guess...growing up, I was actually pretty blithely unaware of myself. I was a pretty independent child with quite the mouth on him starting at the age of three years old. I had kids that I would play with, but most of the time I was by myself. I created my own worlds, my own characters, my own creations. I had a world that was solely mine, people that existed only to me, and rules that I applied to everyday life. A dream state. My Mother would probably tell you that she knew I was gay at the Age of Three. I had an imaginary friend named Iola around that time. I played with Iola all the time. I know it sounds crazy, but I definitely remember her. She would just sit and listen to me go on and on about everything I was thinking about, she would play with me, and honestly I didn't think she was imaginary at all. I thought she was our next door neighbor at the time. It wasn't until I looked back MANY years later that I realized I was the only person who ever had ANY interaction with her. She also looked exactly like the character Iola Boylen from "Mama's Family". For those of you who are too young to remember the show, or have forgotten, this is exactly what my imaginary friend looked like.

Here's Your Sign. At the age of 5 I got in trouble at my school which was a Christian Private School for singing "Like A Prayer" by Madonna on the playground, which please take a moment to understand and realize how ridiculous this is. I was five years old, I had no idea the subtext of the music video, I just remember singing it along with my Uncle who sometimes babysat me. "Like A Prayer" was the first complete song I ever learned. Here's Your Sign.

I never liked playing with "Boy" things. When I was also 5, my mother got married and I inherited a Step Brother as well as eventually a Sister. My Step Father was a guys' guy. He was a hick from a small town in Northern California, and though I remember having a LOT of fun with him growing up, he is where I experienced my first bouts of Homophobia. I don't think he was TRYING to be homophobic, I think he really just thought I needed a strong male figure in my life. He would try to get me to play guy things like baseball, soccer, shooting guns, things of that nature. And some of them, yeah I did like, but really? If i'm being honest? After my sister was born and about 3 or 4 years old, all I really wanted to do is play with her and her Barbies. Here's Your Sign.

I remember my Stepfather getting angry and I remember him telling my Mother on more than one occassion "You know he's gonna grow up and be gay right?" Gay. That was the first time I had ever heard that word, I didn't even know what it meant, but it was really the first time I had heard a characteristic applied to me that I didn't understand...but I never really put much stock in it, it did however create tension between my mother and my Stepfather. I think part of the problem I had growing up was that every man that entered my Mom's life tried to be "My Father", and if i'm being honest, i've never met my birth father and I really just don't feel like I missed out on anything important. To me it didn't matter if I could throw a football well, it mattered that I knew things about the world. I think I was definitely a product of being somewhat "raised" by television, which is not to say my Mother wasn't a good mother, but she was a single Mom for most of my life and worked her ass off, I spent a lot of time alone or babysitting my sister, or being babysat and the easiest solution for children, unfortunately is USUALLY Television.


I always tried to watch things that were way beyond my field of reference and understand them, whatever this "adult" world was, I wanted to be a part of it, which would explain the very mouthy, matter of factness I had in my youth. I was drawn to TV shows and movies where the women were in control or had power or somewhat of a scandal about them. I thought they were beautiful, and they weren't supposed to have this power, at least I didn't think so when I was young, but they did. I was raised around mostly women. My childhood friends were my Mom's Best Friend's children, who were all girls. In order to hang out and play with them, I had to fit in. So when I got the Hot Wheels toy instead of the Barbie toy in my McDonald's Happy Meal? I threw a fit. I was very fortunate however, to have a mother who never asked questions, who didn't care if I played with a girl toy, a boy toy, or a cardboard box as long as I was happy. 


So, even with my "feminine" dispositions, I lived a relatively normal childhood, for the most part free of really anyone making fun of me for being who I was. This all changed when I entered Junior High. 


The town I live in is actually a pretty Liberal and open town, but 12 - 14 year old children are not a part of that. I have said time and time again that Junior High is NOTORIOUSLY the worst years for most kids who are different. For whatever reason, when we reach preadolescence we become horrible DEMON spawns who mask our differences by blatantly and RUDELY pointing out the differences of others, I will start by saying that yeah, I definitely engaged in the name calling, and taunting myself, as I feel if I DIDN'T say that I would be portraying myself as some kind of righteous sweet person who never had a hand in the tormenting of others. We ALL did. EVERYBODY had somebody they made fun or did something nasty to. We were ALL at that age once. I am not saying what I experienced was WORSE than others, but I can only speak from my own story and truth. 


The first person I ever really remember being a BULLY to me was in the 7th Grade. His name was Tony Mullins. I use his full name because I have never been a fan of discretion in any form. He didn't make fun of me because he knew me to be gay, HE made fun of me because I was fat. In gym class, he would run next to me while I ran and TAUNT me, saying things "Come on, fatty. You better pick up the pace! Run fat ass, run!" It was TERRIBLE...everything that I did, he would make some comment to make me feel pretty much like shit. I dreaded that class and pretty much every PE Class after that because of people like him. It was the first time I really ever remember feeling self conscious, not good enough. And after 7th grade, it only got worse.


In the 8th and 9th grade, I was pretty much tormented by a guy named Marcos Rivas. Again, I use his full name because I don't believe in discretion, and for him to have had the balls as a 14 year old boy to say and do the things he did to me, he should also have the balls to stand in his truth. As luck would always seem to have it, whatever bully I had ended up being in at least three or four of my classes, and Marcos was no exception. I VIVIDLY remember sitting in my Earth Sciences class in 9th grade and getting assigned to be in his lab group. The entire class he would literally say such things as "You know you're gay right? You know you like to suck dick right? Does your boyfriend like when you suck his dick?" It was degrading and embarrassing as he would do this in front of other people, ANYBODY who would listen, and I never felt worse about myself than in 9th Grade Earth Science class. I had another bully in Spanish in the 9th grade named David Garcia who would pretty much take any chance to tell me that I was gay and ask me how much I liked penis.


9th grade was... a terrible year. I even had a teacher be blatantly homophobic to me my freshman year. I was in Math A AKA Slow People Math and had a teacher named Mr. Keating who is still a teacher at the high school I went to. He was a man who had very much lived out his best days in high school and it showed in almost everything he did and said. He didn't want to be an authority figure, he wanted to be buddies. In class he pointed out several times my feminine tendencies, once even knit-picking the way that I covered my mouth to cover my laugh. I merely covered it with both my hands while he pointed out in front of the class that "Only girls cover there mouths like that and that boys should make a fist to do so." Yeah, seriously. Also once on a field trip across the street to the Safeway I remember him telling me that I should maybe not say all the things I say and then people would not make fun of me. Yeah, this was a teacher in my school.


So you can see how in all of this, I never told anybody. I never told a damn soul, because from my opinion, it was coming from every direction, and that this being "gay" thing was a giant problem. I wasn't trying to "be" anything but myself, but it seemed to draw a lot of attention, a lot of "scandal." The funny thing was, I was somewhat known for being one of the biggest smart asses to ever walk the halls of the school, but it was bravado, it was all an act. I had to appear confident, I had to appear like it didn't phase me, otherwise I would have probably been VERY far off.  But in a WAY, this actually started me on a path to figure out who I was...when people tell you that you act gay, or that you ARE gay, you begin to think...maybe I AM gay? 


I felt a little asexual in high school. I wasn't really attracted to anybody in particular..but I DID know that when I masturbated, it was to images of men...and for some strange reason usually the men who were mean to me, almost as a coping mechanism to deal with the verbal assault. I never dated, and although girls were interested in me, the only interest I had in THEM was the confusion on as to why they were interested in me in the first place. I really didn't feel like a sexual human being, which just makes one feel more isolated. I felt pretty alone, and if not for escapes like the Internet or TV, I probably would have attempted something far more dangerous. I never used alcohol or drugs while I was growing up and in school, it was just never an option for me. I dealt by living in fantasy, I dealt by maintaining HOPE that once I was done with school, I could be FREE, I could go and do what I wanted and nobody would care. And you know what? It turned out, that for the most part...I was right.


After high school, I moved to Carson City, Nevada. I wanted to get out of Chico but still have family nearby, and my grandparents and cousin happened to live in Carson City, so I felt a little safe. I lived with my cousin in a one bedroom depressing apartment, had no car, walked to my glamorous job at KFC everyday, and again had very little social interaction. For those of you who know me today, it might be hard to believe that from the ages of 13 to about 19 most of friends were "online". I didn't go to parties, hang out, I didn't really... have any friends. If it wasn't for my cousin Airen all but forcing me to participate in my life, I don't know where I might be today, and for that I thank her.


Through my cousin, I met many different people from all walks of life and had my encounter with my first actual openly gay person, and his name was Pedro. He was a VERY effeminate, loud and crazy personality and to be quite honest he scared the hell out of me. I thought that if I admitted that I was gay to myself that all of a sudden I would become very much like Pedro. The only other gay people I had seen until that point in my life had been from watching scrambled "Queer as Folk" on SHO in my bedroom in high school. Again I was very afraid that once I said it out loud, that once I admitted this truth, I would become a dancing queen gym bunny who slept with anything that moved and couldn't live without techno. I thought it would transform me in a way I didn't want or like.


After a lot of deep personal thought, I couldn't help but think that the reason I really wasn't enjoying my life was because I wasn't living authentically. I didn't have relationships with people because they didn't know who I really was. I spent every single day waking up repeating "I'm Gay. I'm Gay, I'm Gay, I'm Gay" all day long, almost as if I had to convince myself. Six months later it changed to "Today I'm going to tell somebody that I'm gay." and before long...I finally worked up the courage. I had gotten a job at Starbucks and was starting to make a lot of new friends, and I decided that it was time to really just put myself out there. The first person I ever told was my co-worker and friend Monica Ward. We were closing at Starbucks together and I told her that after work I really needed to talk to her, and so... in the parking lot of a Starbucks in Carson City, NV in the year 2005 I told my friend Monica that I was gay. I chose her first because I was pretty sure that she would have the most positive of reactions of my friends, and I was right. She told me pretty much what everyone else after her would tell me. "I know, babe. I was just waiting for you to know."


VERY THANKFULLY for me, I was blessed with family and friends that were MORE than supportive of me and my confession. I thank God everyday that I have the people in my life that I do. I was one of the very lucky ones to never experience that horrible pain of somebody NOT accepting my truth, of somebody DISOWNING me. I was LUCKY. VERY LUCKY and am not ignorant of the fact.


The next months of my life were a whirlwind as my social calender opened up, I met my first long term boyfriend, Kalib who would be in my life for the next 3 years, I moved out from my cousin and I's small apartment and in with a roommate. I drank alcohol, and I didn't die. I LIVED life. All because I was finally able to be WHO I was to EVERYBODY, and my happiness wasn't based on their reactions, it was based on me being AUTHENTICALLY me. I didn't have to be overcompensating with humor or sarcasm or opinion or anything. I got to be ME. I had shed the sins and hurt of the past and fully accepted BRANDON.


Five years later, I am sitting here, working for a small locally owned business BACK in my hometown. A company that has 6 employees that fall in the LGTBQ umbrella, and NOBODY talks about it, nobody cares. It's a diverse company because it simply is. I have a boyfriend who I love and adore. A man who was married and has TWO children and an amazing support system around him. I have so many great gay friends, with so many different stories from so many different walks of life, all with a different frame of reference and perspective and THAT is what this story is all about. I think it's important to share the stories of the people that I love in an effort to pay it forward. To show people that it doesn't MATTER where you came from, that who you WERE isn't as important as the person that you are TRYING to be. You CAN find happiness, and that if you just wait out those painful days, months, hours, seconds that seem to drive DEEP into your very soul, that you inevitably come out stronger and happy. Your life is yours, nobody has to live it but you. You have nothing to lose but what no longer serves you. TRUST ME. It DOES get better.

My First Pair of Gay Jeans!

Every culture has stereotypes, and while it's true, that stereotypes don't always categorize every single person in a certain culture, they exist for one reason: A lot of the time they are true.

Each group of people has, generalizations that may not always be pretty, but for the most part, ring true. Maybe that's why people get so upset about them...because they hold a little nugget of truth people refuse to admit about them. I usually try to avoid them myself. Being a gay man, there are some people in our country who expect me to look like... Oh, I don't know... This:

When in Reality, I look more like:

Just Kidding, it's more like this:

Fortunately for our culture, we tend to get the prettier side of stereotypes. We are known to have great hair, awesome bodies, and yes... beautiful clothes. That last one...well all three, i've struggled with throughout the years, but when it comes to clothes... I just fall to the wayside. I'm just a basic person. I like basic t-shirts, basic jeans, basic shoes. In fact, I only have two pairs of shoes, and I can hear the collective gasp of shock from many a gay man as I type this. I guess i've never really thought about what I wear all that much, but it seems I am a dying breed among gay men.

Take my partner for instance. He loves clothes. He loves to shop. He owns more pairs of shoes than I ever will in my entire life. He loves asthetics, he likes to look expensive. He relishes in and waits for the moment that some bleach blonde twink comes up and says "I LOVE that shirt! Where did you get it?" To where he cracks that shit eating grin and says "In the Castro". But of Course.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands, and start at what I thought was a small step. Gay Jeans. Now when I posted on my facebook that I had bought "gay jeans" people were confused, and I got many comments like "Every pair of jeans you wear are gay jeans!" or "I don't get it." Let me break it down for you with this little comparison:

These are your regular every day, Joe Schmo jeans. They are comfortable, you can wear them all the time, and you want to. They are reasonably priced, and every grandmother across America will say "Now THAT'S a good Jean."

And THEN... there are GAY Jeans:

These jeans scream "I went to BUCKLE! And I spent way more than I should! You're looking at my ass because of all the fucking Bedazzling! Relish in my awesome jeans and PLEASE ask me where I got them!"

I wanted somewhere in between... and so, the Boyfriend and I took a walk into... BUCKLE.

So... I hate Buckle.

It's like walking onto a used car lot or cutting your finger and jumping into the Ocean. The Employees at Buckle obviously work for commission and you can tell during their New Hire Orientation they are programmed to believe that if they don't sell 62,348 pairs of jeans or clothing a day, they are a terrible person. But I will admit, they are good. One thing Buckle knows is that people will buy almost ANYTHING from somebody if they are really hot, and this store is no exception. Nearly everybody that works at Buckle is fairly attractive... well at least more attractive than somebody you might find working at SEARS mmkay? They have to be attractive because each employee looks as if the clothing brands Affliction/Ed Hardy/OBEY and Ke$ha have thrown up all over them.

Today, my Personal Shopper is... well let's just call him Titan...because he looks like just that.. a literal representation of the Sons of one of the Greek Gods standing before me. I want to dip him in chocolate and voraciously eat him like a Chocolate Easter Bunny. (Disclaimer to my Boyfriend: He MEANS NOTHING!)

 Artist Rendering of Titan. ^ Meow.

Before he even speaks, i'm locked in.

Titan: Hey, There Welcome to Buckle! Oh Hey You!

(Looking at my Boyfriend...is it a bad thing if your boyfriend is RECOGNIZED by the Buckle Employees?)

Titan: So, What Are We Here for Today?

Me: Well...Uh..Well..Pretty Bird!!

Boyfriend *rolling eyes* : He is actually here to look at some jean options and maybe find a better pair for him.

Me: Exactly.

Then...he SHAKES my damn hand, and introduces himself.

Titan: Hi.. I'm Titan. Nice to meet you.

Oh he's good. Really good.

So the search begins and he is already asking me questions like Bootcut, Straight Fit, Top or Bottom? (Anything You Want Me to Be, Titan!) And I am a little nervous, I mean I hate shopping and I usually hate when employees at Retail stores hone in on me, but having worked in retail for 3 1/2 years previous to my now glamorous life as a blogger, I am always nice. Once you've had a woman attempt to slap you over $2 Cozy Socks, you can handle anything. So he's asking all these questions and I just stumble over myself and answer like I confidently know what the FUCK he is talking about. Next, he hands me two pairs of jeans and takes me to a dressing room. And here I am. Titan would like me to try on a pair of bootcut and straight to see which I like better. In the midst of buttoning the last button on these pair of jeans, I hear a knock...and it's TITAN! Just standin' outside my dressing room like he's my best gal pal who cannot WAIT to go get Mojitos after this.

Titan: So, buddy! Which pair did you like better?

Me: F*@K%&#!!!. You scared the shit out of me!!!!

Titan: What?

Me: Surprisingly, the Straight Fit.

Titan: Alright, i'll be back with more options...

At this point, I look at the pair of jeans I am wearing an they are $75, which is mortifying to me. I've never spent that much money on a pair of jeans before in my life. Again, I hear the collective gasp of many a gay men reading who can't believe/can't believe what a good deal $75 is for a pair of jeans.. So, now Titan has me drowning in jeans. I felt lock the fuckin' Goldilocks of Jeans. "This one's too big! Too tight! Too much!" It is at this point I notice something about Buckle.

On the tags for their jeans, there is a perforated tab to pull right before you get to the price of the jeans. This means the tag stays completely connected to the jeans themselves, but that you can just rip the price off and have it look almost as if the tag COMES that way. I could tell Titan was playing a game with me. He had given me so many options. A reasonable pair that I think he could tell I would probably buy, some higher priced not so great pairs, and then finally the last pair.

They were many characteristics I don't remember about these jeans 80% so and so 10% whatever, all I remember were that they were 100% pure Heaven.

I've never felt so sexy in a pair of jeans in my entire life. I felt as if the second I walked out of that fitting room, Titan and the rest of the world would BOW DOWN to how good I looked and establish me as the KING of BUCKLE. I almost cried. I pictured the reaction to be like when Rachel Leigh Cook took off her glasses and then Anna Paquin did her make up and got her a red dress in the Movie "She's All That". I pictured myself finally winning over Freddie Prinze Jr. they were so good.

Then I looked at the price tag. They were $113. Which after finding out what other people have paid for jeans, isn't that much, but for somebody like me, it just isn't realistic. I bartered with myself...I might not ever have to buy jeans again with a pair like this... could I LIVE in these pants if it came down to it? Who cares? With jeans like this i'd have sugar daddies lining down the block to get a little taste.

After what seemed like minutes of arguing with myself I just couldn't do it...but I respected Titan's plan of attack. He would find one pair of jeans for a customer that he knew they would like, that were reasonably priced enough to justify buying. Then he would cast over the bullshit expensive jeans that didn't look good, and just ONE pair that he KNEW would probably sell to ANYBODY and was just a tad bit more expensive. He banked on people buying impulsively, getting lost in the dream in the goddamn FANTASY of the jean. Either way, that man KNEW how to make a commission. So with much begrudement, I put down the real expensive ones, and I bought the moderately priced jean that looked decent enough on me so that people would stop thinking I was wearing either Jeggings or Wranglers.

I had done it. I had gone through the trenches and come out, for the most part unscathed. I could tell that my boyfriend was jealous of the relationship and newfound respect that Titan and I had for each other, but you know that they say... "The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth...but it Ran Away in a Pair of $75 jeans from Buckle."

Or Something Like That.