Pink it and Shrink It
Last night I got myself a new backpack. And…. it's pink. >eyeroll<
Ted has been telling me for years that my old pack is the wrong size, which didn't make much sense to me, since the pack has adjustable straps all over the place. But we went to REI after dinner (20% off!) and a great guy named Corey measured me and pulled out an Osprey pack that he said was the right size and capacity.
But it was pink. Yeah… I don't do pink.
But it comes in teal too, he said. (So if it's a women's pack it has to come in girl colors? Double eyeroll) I said we should at least see if the pack was right and he fitted it to me, and then loaded it up with 15 lbs of weight distributed correctly.
Wow. Ok, my old pack really WAS the wrong size. This was a lot more comfortable!
But it was pink. Well, raspberry, maybe. With mauvish tendencies.
As he looked on his computer, he commented that, once upon a time, the retail motto for selling an item to women was "Pink it and Shrink it" but nowadays manufacturers were finding that more and more women don't feel the need to have everything pink, so some were moving away from that. I thought of the pink 'girl' Legos, and the pink Bic pens "for Her" and how much grief the manufacturers got for assuming that women wouldn't use things that were… "boy" colors.
Corey found a single teal pack available… in Texas or somewhere. And it was a xsmall/small, whereas the one he had fitted to beautifully to me was small/med. We tried adjusting a men's size small (in a nice green) but it just wasn't as comfortable. He offered another brand in a tealy blue, but Irejected it almost immediately because it was the same price and not as well made.
Hmmm. I looked back at the pink one. The one that was now professionally adjusted to fit me just right.
And anyway, I thought… it will be behind me. It's not like I"ll have to look at a stupid pink backpack all day, right? That's Ted's burden to bear.
"It doesn't even really look pink to me" he said. (Nice try. It's pink.)
And so it came to pass that I will be hiking up the mountain with a pink…ish… backpack. If you see me, don't laugh. Just admire how well it fits!
Tracy Meisky is a poet, writer, singer, songwriter and all-around boat rocker from way back. Feel free to look around, but if you break it, you bought it.