On Saturday Sarah and I set out to find a coat. A trench coat, really. Any long brown coat would do. A suit would be nice but not necessary, cheap Converse All-stars would be nice too but we knew where to find those so no problem, but the trench coat was the tricky one. I had done some investigation beforehand and found maybe like 12 long coats at the Value Village, but they were all way too big and not the right style, so I didn’t buy any. I figured I’d spend about $20 at a thrift store somewhere.

So we started at the Crossroads Trendy Resale Shop near my house. No long coats. Up to the U District (where soulja boy and electric six hang out) to the Buffalo Exchange Trendy Resale Shop. Again, no long coats, but some pants that looked promising. Over to the Red Light Vintage and Resale Shop; some kinda neat suits but they were priced at like $100-150 and had rips and stuff. Goodwill had a similar lack of long coats. Argh! Despair starts to worm its dirty little fingers into our minds. Express bus downtown to the Ross Discount Clothes store; no winter coats. Out of season. Duh. H&M Trendy New Clothes: again, out of season.

At this point, we are standing outside Nordstrom. Well hey, a department store, right? They’ll have some coats, anyway, even if they’re out of my price range. We waltz in, past the pianoman (because you see it is classy), down to the men’s department, and I stride confidently up to a salesman and proclaim “I would like a trench coat!” He points me over to the wall a little bit like the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. Aha! Look at those coats! Perfect! And now, mind you, my price range had crept up steadily with each failure, from $20 to $40, to $60, and was at this point pushing $80.

I pick a coat and look at the price tag. Eight hundred ninety five dollars! Harh! I am off by an entire order of magnitude! This is funny! Because, you see, had the price been $100, I would have bought it; $200, I would have wishy-washed a lot; $500, ‘fraid not. But being off by a factor of 10: that’s funny.

The thrilling conclusion: we leave, wander around and look for some more thrift stores that aren’t there because they’re not the best at making sure their Google Maps listings are up-to-date, we almost fight, Sarah suggests we go to Macy’s, I say no way they won’t have anything we want for sure, she says let’s try anyway, I agree to take a quick look, I ask a man while she looks around, the man says they have no coats but Sarah finds some anyway, there are exactly three styles left on a clearance rack and exactly one coat that fits a man as small-chested as I, and that coat is the brilliant shining paragon of coat-that-I-wanted for 75% off and I walk home $100 poorer but 1000% more awesome the next day.

What happened the next day? Stay tuned, dear reader…