Shopping With My 75-Year-Old Mother-in-Law

My mother-in-law and I do not agree on fashion. Chicos is chic, she counsels, modern. She once told my children I needed to stop dressing like a teenager. An old friend, when I told her this, said, “Clearly she didn’t know you when you were a teenager.” Clearly.

On a recent visit, she conned me into taking her to Dillard’s on the pretense of buying herself a shirt outside of my father-in-law’s frugal watch. After twenty minutes at the Ralph Lauren racks, pointing out which zebra print and nautical sweaters would look lovely with my coloring, she gave up.

“This is my daughter,” she told the sales clerk. “I try to buy her things, but you can’t buy her anything. Because she’s petite, but she’s not petite.”

The woman smiled and nodded toward the petite section. “But there’s nothing young over there. She needs to shop on that side of the store.” She pointed to the department where no one had a walker, or an oxygen mask.

My mother-in-law dismissed her with a look. ”But I like Ralph Lauren.”