AAAAAHHHH!!!

I’m mad at the world today. Know why? I went shopping for long underwear for my daughters today. We’re avid skiers, and they start a weekly ski club in the new year. We’ll be going to Sunshine Village in Banff every Sunday for ten weeks, for the girls to ski all day in a club, and for Mom and Dad to ski all day all alone. Sounds fun, eh?

For sure. Super fun. But in case you’ve never spent a January day in the mountains in Banff, let me tell you, it can get cold. DAMN COLD. Imagine -20 C, on a chairlift, in the wind. Brrr…

So, yeah, long johns. For a 7-year old girl and a 4.5 year-old girl. Pretty straightforward, wouldn’t you think?

Not!

So, I go to the ski shop at Canada Olympic Park. It’s recently been renovated and they have tons of stuff…and what I thought was a really good selection of kid’s stuff. And actually, it is a really good selection of kids’ jackets, snowpants, gloves, mitts, helmets, hats, goggles…you name it. If you need ski gear for kids, they’ve got it. Except long johns.

Well, that’s not precisely true. They had one kind of children’s long johns. And they cost $39.99. A piece. That works out to $160 (before tax) worth of long underwear…that I was intending as stocking stuffers. Ahhh…no.

So I looked at Sport Mart. The 12-year old sales rep tried to tell me that Junior size is the same as children’s. I had to take out the Junior small long johns and hold them up and ask him “do you think these will fit a four-year old?” Actually, I don’t think he could tell, to tell the truth. Or, perhaps more accurately, I don’t think he cared. So then off to Sports Traders, and then Sport Chek. At Sport Chek, the sales girl showed me an XL shirt of the same $40 stuff from COP. When I asked “don’t you have anything else?” She replied, “not for girls. There’s just no demand.”

To which I felt compelled to reply, “they get cold just like everyone else.”

But then as I fumed in the car on the way home it occurred to me that what she possibly meant by “no demand” is that girls don’t go out and do things in the cold. But mine do.

So, tomorrow morning I’ll be at Mountain Equipment Co-Op (my inner voice told me I should have just gone there in the first place) to buy high-quality, made in Canada (fabric made in the US by Malden Mills, quite possibly the coolest company EVER!) long underwear IN GIRLS’ SIZES for $17.99 a piece.

I should have listened to my inner voice. MEC knows that girls are athletes, too.