Would you like epaulets with that?

If I found a really ugly shirt they were ashamed of making in the first place, the markdown would be 140%, and I'd make money on the deal, but only if I opened up a credit card, in which case they would take an additional 10% off the price.

Next week, the sales associate said, everything would be 40% off a second item if you joined the Reward program and submitted to an oral swab to get your DNA in the database so they could tailor their promotions to your needs.

Every trip to this store is like this, as if the company's marketing director used to write middle-school math textbook questions.

All I wanted was a light jacket. Something for those transitional days between winter and summer. I found something, but it was cut too broad, and made me look as if I was wearing a large grocery bag. Perhaps that's the style. Maybe I could get it in brown and write "Thank you" in 10 languages with a Sharpie, and people would think I was an old Lunds bag come to life.

Sigh. Well, nothing here. Let's go to the big anchor store ... oh, right, they've given up on life. Far less choice, and one-tenth the checkouts. If you want to buy some socks, you end up checking out at cosmetics.

I really didn't want to shop online, but, of course, that's where I ended up. OK, Amazon, pour forth the bounteous choices. Ah! Here's an inexpensive spring jacket, and it comes in 42 colors. Not 42 different-colored jackets; 42 colors on the same jacket. You look like you covered yourself with glue and rolled around in paint chips at Menard's.

Here's something severe and stylish, tapered at the waist to avoid that sacky look, and there are five choices of colors: Black, Charcoal, Dark Grey, Monochrome Dusk and Feverish Soviet Red. They have my size, but let's check the reviews.

"Runs short," says one. "Bought the small for my husband, who is 5'5", ended up using it on the chihuahua for cold-weather walks."

"Fits like a dream!" says another. Well, that depends on the dream. I had one the other night where I was walking around in a barrel filled with fish scales, followed by cats who walked on their back legs and whistled the "Andy Griffith" theme.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

James Lileks
Minneapolis Star Tribune/ (TNS)

James Lileks is a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.