The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. I hate clothes shops. I always have. I hated clothes shops as a boy, having to follow my mom as she dragged me round never-ending aisles of clothes, being literally bored to tears. I hated clothes shops as a teenager, trying to find something that would make me look less creepy without a shop assistant asking me if I needed help. (Shop assistants asking me if I need help is one of my least favourite things. I don't know why. Social anxiety, maybe.)

I don’t have a wardrobe of clothes. I don't follow fashion. But sometimes, I have to venture outside to get new clothes.

Like today.

First I try Zara. I like Zara. Zara's my friend.

Except today it isn't. All the clothes are for old men: grey, boring, wool, old man clothes. Where are the t-shirts with Pokemon on? Where are the multi-coloured shorts?

So next I go into a shop called Sneakeans and then immediately wish I hadn't. All the clothes are shit. What's going on? Is there some kind of conspiracy between the clothes shops to make men look as bland as possible?

What kind of a name for a shop is Sneakeans anyway? Maybe there's a man called Ian and he's sneaky. Sneaky Ian's.

A shop assistant approaches me and says, "Do you need any help?"

I'm about to say, "No, I'm just looking thanks," when I look at the shop assistant's face and freeze. Is it a man? Or a woman? I honestly can't tell. He/she is androgynous, sex indeterminate. Not that I have a problem with that. People can be whoever they want. But now I haven't said anything for seconds and there's an awkward silence and I can tell that he/she thinks I'm a homophobic bigot.

"Just looking thanks," I say.

He/she narrows his/her eyebrows at me and walks away. For some reason, I feel dirty, like a shoplifter. I want to leave the shop but I can't because he/she will think I'm leaving because I hate him/her. And I don't hate anyone, really, I just want to live life in peace.

So instead of leaving, I look around the shop for a couple of minutes, pretending to actually consider buying some of their crap clothes. Finally, after enough time has passed, I bolt for the exit.

Next, I go into a shop called Colonial. All the staff look at me as I walk in: two assistants and one manager.

I can tell what they're thinking: Here comes a potential customer! Don't panic. Act natural! If we play this right, we can make a sale!

"Do you need any help?" asks the manager. I can hear the desperation in the manager's voice. She probably needs to sell $5,000 worth of merchandise today or else she can't afford medication for her kid.

"Just looking thanks," I say.

I get the feeling that if I don't buy something, then the shop will close permanently and I will be responsible. All I wanted was to buy some pants and now I've become part of this store's problems. If I don't buy a £100 diamond-encrusted T-shirt with a picture of a tiger on it, then little Jimmy (the manager's son) won't be able to afford basic dental treatment that he needs for his rotting teeth.

I like this shop and bought t-shirts from here last year. But now, what's happened, all the clothes look the same: black, bland, like something One Direction would wear.

I can't look around clothes shops anymore. I'm physically incapable. I cannot do it. I need a disability pass because I'm disabled from looking for clothes.

If it were up to me, I'd walk around naked. Actually, if it were up to me, everyone would walk around naked, all the time. Except for the ugly people, who can keep their clothes on.

Next I try H&M.

The changing rooms are closed indefinitely because of COVID. Not that I'd use them anyway. I don't feel like taking my clothes off. I can't even be bothered to take my coat off. Not unless there's any sex involved. And I don't think there is H&M, not unless H&M stands for handjobs and masochism, which I don't think it does.

There's a rack of plain, white T-shirts. You can't go wrong with a plain, white T-shirt. Not until you spill spaghetti bolognese down it, but I never eat spaghetti bolognese anyway so I don't have to worry about that.

I sort through the T-shirts, trying to find my size. There's plenty of XXS t-shirts and plenty of XXL t-shirts but no medium t-shirts. In fact, there's nothing in between XXS and XXL. What the fuck? Do H&M think that men only come in two types: emaciated and obese?

This is where I finally lose my sanity, I think. This is where my mind finally snaps.

I look up to see if anyone else is on the verge of losing their sanity like I am. But everyone is just browsing, like normal.

On the way out, I'm tempted to buy some Pikachu socks. But I leave them on the shelf as a form of protest against H&M. That'll show them.

Well, I am going to buy three pairs of boxer shorts for €19.99.

To buy the boxer shorts, I have to stand in a queue. It's been so long since I've been to a clothes shop that I've forgotten how bad it is. Standing in line? Do people really do that anymore? I thought queues were extinct now, like dinosaurs and Barry Manilow's career. But apparently not. Here I am, standing in a queue.

I'll be here for some time, it seems because the woman in front of me is trying to return a handbag or something. I don't know. I just want to buy my pants and get out.

I might just stop wearing underwear altogether. The problem is, if your fly is down and you don't realise, then you might accidentally flash your penis at the children at Dudley Zoo. That never happened to me, by the way.

The world's most generic pop music is coming out of a speaker directly above me. It's like music made by robots. But even robots wouldn't stand for music so shit. There would be a robot uprising if robots had to make this music.

Is this what hell is like? It probably is.

Next to me are jumpers. Jumpers with Harvard and UCLD on them. I assume UCLD stands for University of Cuntwits, Losers and Dumbfucks.

Jumpers with university names on them are like t-shirts with the word NASA. You're not going to Harvard. You don't work at NASA. The closest thing you'll get to NASA is typing the word BOOBS into a calculator. This is why all t-shirts with writing on them must be banned, along with tattoos and Vernon Kaye.

I don't like these clothes shops at all. We need a new type of clothes shop. One where you walk in, and there's a very camp man (think Gok Wan) sitting on a chair with his legs crossed. He gets up and studies you carefully. Then he claps his hands and some other people come out with exactly the right clothes you need. You tap your card on the reader, give him a generous tip, and then leave with five years’ worth of clothes in bags. That would be the ideal shopping situation. Not this shit.