The only safe Penney's purchases are linens and socks. Trust me. I speak as a man whose mother has a JCP house charge and a lack of imagination when it comes to gifts. I have so many sheets and towels from there, my linen closet looks like the prop room for a bad sitcom about the wacky misadventures of the Ku Klux Klan on the high seas called Percale's Navy.

my sister's boyfriend has a jcp credit card, so all she gets for holidays is tacky gold jewelry, haha, funniest ugliest shit i eva' seen

Penny's. I can't help you. If it was Sears you could at least get Tools. CRAFTSMAN TOOLS.

Perhaps she could keep these items and make a kick ass White Elephant quilt?

Narnia and dead children references--Together at last.

I still heard the malevolent sursurrations of the fabric.

susurrations.

There's no 'r' in the first syllable.

That's the first mistake I've seen in a year. You must have a great copy-editor.

Ah, good catch, thanks.

I'm my own copy-editor, but even yesterday I used "neuroses" where I should have used "neurosis," so I seem to botch it fairly regularly.

What you need to know about downscale department stores is this:

Fuck Penny's. Mervyn's is THE SHIT.

No, really.

Y'know, JCPenney's was the company, which in 1995 bought Zubaz (and AFAIK still owns the rights) from those wrestler boys from Minnesota. Shame they discontinued 'em, otherwise you'd be able to get yourself some fine-lookin' pants.

Okay, sit down, TJ Maxx, I see you.

Actually, TJ Maxx resells last season's major-label inventory, so you can generally find some pretty good stuff if you go there every couple of months and are willing to spend a few minutes going through a lot of stuff that's destined for the rag trade. A case could even be made that TJ Maxx is about as hip as it gets, operating as it does at the intersection of couture and people who are broke.

(Marshall's = same as TJ Maxx, owned by the same company.)

It's too bad that Penney's doesn't sell electronics like Sears. Then you could have gotten something geeky/gadgety like. My mom and dad used to have a JCP charge and all I could ever find were drab sweatshirts. Everything else sucked.

I've been out of town for a while, so I had to read your past entries. You should get paid for this - you are so damn funny. Thanks for making me laugh even when I feel like shite.

Black comedy is all about the clothes. Add the plaid Speedos to your emsemble, sit back and wait for the applause.

It's Penney's, man. SHOES, go to the shoes. They have normal nice shoes.

(PS - I ordered lots of my Christmas and found that all the biggies like LL Bean, Lands End and Edward Bauer are all going to the body bag for their mailing. Makes it real shitty when it's time to wrap.)

If there were such a thing as the Simile Olympics, you would be a shoe-in.

"...like a shift fashioned out of dead children."
"...like a tiny body bag built for goth pixies."

Classic.

I was going to express my outrage about TJ Maxx not being hip but I think someone else did it for me.

Man, ya ever been to the Maxx? Then don't talk! 'Cause they sell lots and lots of bottles of special kind of olive oil and no place that isn't hip would do that.

Ha... I sell men's suits at a JCPenney in Iowa and your assessment is pretty much the consensus here. I'll admit the clothing isn't always "in style"- you probably won't appreciate, for example, the offensively bright blue slacks we sell, unless you're over 70.

p.s. If you want electronics stuff order it out of the Penney's catalog, they have TVs and everything Sears has... and you can use gift cards on that sort of stuff.

Hi, do you know of anyone still selling zubaz? I would really like to get some for my brother. His are pretty worn out and he wears them all the time. He has the snake style. Thanks for any help that can be given. I've looked on ebay and get more of the zubaz-like hits. Julie