Buying Seersucker

My wife, my brother-in-law, and I were at the mall over the weekend, and ran across a rack of seersucker suit coats. They were that sort of white-and-almost-black-stripe pattern, with the stripes so numerous and narrow that it creates a dizzying optical illusion. Having not moved all summer, they were priced to vanish at approximately $7 each (the original price tag, if it is to be believed, reads $140).

Well... it's not something I would normally wear, unless I were intent upon being mistaken for Don Johnson. However, it did seem just right for a costume piece--I've decided that to emcee my annual scavenger hunt* I should don ye olde garb of a cheesey gameshow host, complete with mini-microphone and helmet hair. Let's make a deal, you know?

So I returned to the department store this evening, selected from the five remaining jackets one that fit me (approximately), making sure to share with the clerk that I would not be wearing this to the club, no siree, this was for a costume. A costume, you got that? However, when the clerk rang up this little beauty we discovered that it was not on sale for about $7.

It had been placed on "ludicrous clearance" (my term, not theirs) for the laughter-inducing grand total of $2.57! And because the planets had aligned just-so, I happened to have $3 cash in my wallet.

I am now the owner of one loud seersucker jacket, and I'm sorely tempted to go back and pick up the others for my best friends, for no other reason than to see how far this joke can go.


*Sorry, the scavenger hunt is just for family and those few people to whom I've sworn a blood-oath.