The Sherpa Jacket of Shame

Hello. My name is Drew and I own a sherpa jacket. It’s corduroy with lining that may remind you of an elderly, nut-brown cocker spaniel. I bought it back when sherpa jackets were a thing, but I stopped wearing it outdoors for the following reasons:

1. I eventually realized that a lot of the same people who were wearing sherpa jackets were the ones wearing UGGs in public.
2. Upon close examination, sherpa jackets, with their fuzzy lining, were basically UGG boots for your torso.
3. I didn’t like being lumped into the same category as the UGG crowd.
4. More than once I’ve seen girls wearing UGGs at Coachella, and I’ve been forever repulsed by the thought of their feet squishing around in the soaked UGG lining, frothing up a cocktail of sweat, desert dust and the kind of bacteria you get in a place where drunk people mix with port-a-potties. This point may seem neither here nor there, but to me it seems pertinent to my line of thinking.
5. Once, while wearing the sherpa jacket during my “This is okay to wear outdoors” phase, a man riding shotgun in a passing car leaned out the window and yelled “WHAT’S UP, PUSSY?” at me. My immediate reaction was that he was commenting on my decision to wear a jacket designed for Nepalese mountain climbers during weather that was only cold by coastal California standards. Upon further reflection, however, I can’t say for certain what made me seem like a pussy to the point he had to make a comment. It could have been any number of pussyish things.

My point — which, I admit, doesn’t especially warrant writing this all out, but here I go anyway — is that I’m wearing the jacket now while working in my apartment on a night that’s cold only by coastal California standards. I’m warm and comfortable, though, and I realize how comfortable and functional this jacket is, passé status notwithstanding. It’s times like these that I wish I were the sort of person who could just blithely wear whatever, like the kindergartner who dresses like Robin Hood every day or that one chick who doesn’t wear a bra because “STARLA DON’T WEAR BRAS. AND I’M STARLA!” But today I saw a girl wearing UGGS and sweats that had words on the butt, and I feel compelled to do what I can to distance myself from her, even though I envy her for her impenetrable, opinion-deflecting force field superpower. So I don’t wear what I want because I care too much to look like the sort of person who doesn’t care, whom I both disdain and envy.