Ed and Devon Go to Alaska: My Goldilocks Shopping Experience

Time to go shopping! What woman doesn’t love, love, LOVE to shop? I needed a new riding jacket and if I could squeeze it into the budget a good set of warm gloves. My current jacket is not all that good. It’s a bit big, and not real warm. So off we went to the bike apparel store. I had my shopping shoes, credit card in hand and most importantly Ed’s blessing to spend, spend, and spend!

Now just to start off here I am not a size 2, I’m not a size 30, but not a 2 either. I land somewhere in the middle and I am average height and weight for a female. That being said I figured I could find a good jacket with no problems. Oh how the shopping Gods were laughing at my naiveté.

I stupidly grabbed a jacket in my size. Couldn’t even hardly get it on let alone zip it up. OK so I seemed to remember that motorcycle gear runs a tad small in womens clothing. Note to the designers here: NOT COOL! Yeah us woman already have issues with our clothing size making us buy a bigger size than what we usually wear does not help with our self esteem.

Trying on jackets became quite the work out. This one was too small, this one was too big, this one was too tight around the waist, and the next was too tight around the chest. Then I found one that was too long in the arms, and then one was too tight around my arm pits. It seemed I simply could not find one that fit just right. My frustration level was rising, while my ego was deflating. My size was too small and the bigger sizes were too small and then the even bigger sizes didn’t fit right in certain spots. This was not a fun shopping experience. In fact I was ready to be done. So we left. No new jacket. No new gloves.

I wondered as we were driving home if other women had the same problems I was having. Not all of us are a size 2 with perfect bodies. There are others in my size range and others who are bigger. Where did they buy their gear? How did they find stuff that fit? I did turn to the internet but wasn’t having any luck with that either. I felt like I needed to try it on to make certain it was going to work for me and my body type.

So we waited a week. Saturday rolled around and again we were headed out. Only this time I wasn’t excited or happy to go shopping. This was not going to be a shopping experience I was looking forward to.

I’m sad to say it started out just like the previous experience. Things were too small, too tight, too long and wouldn’t zip up. As I tried on jacket after jacket I began to think “maybe I’ll just get one that zips up, but is long in the arms. “ It would be annoying, but at least it would fit in all the other spots.

And then I put on a Street and Steel Femme Fatale. It zipped up. The arms were the perfect length. It wasn’t too tight. I was in a size that made sense and didn’t make me feel like a fat cow. It was warm. It even fit with a heated liner. It was stylish. I LOVED IT! But I still hadn’t looked at the price tag. So I took a deep breath and looked and saw $178.00, not bad and I was willing to pay it all because it fit. Ladies I’m sure you will understand when I say how nice it was to find gear that fit just right.

But my friends here is the best part and I mean super cool awesome….at the counter I found out that it was 44% off! So my uber cool jacket that fit was now only $100.00. OMG a steal! I was doing the happy dance. Since I saved so much on the jacket I went ahead and got my gloves which were also on sale. Normally $49.99 I was able to grab for $39.99 also Street and Steel brand.

Here we are a week closer to our trip with two more things crossed off our list. I haven’t felt this excited for an event to hurry up and get here since I was 8 and had to wait for Christmas day. How many more days till June?