Attention fashionistas: Red is OUT!

It's Homecoming week at the high school.   Despite having two middle schoolers, we have a decent amount of involvement in the festivities.   The middle school has a float in the parade.  Matt (and the rest of the 8th grade band members) will also march in the parade.  The rest of the school will get to watch it after a strategically-timed fire drill.  Then on Friday night, the 8th grade band kids will play with the high school band during the football game.

As part of the Homecoming activities, Gracie announced yesterday that they were having a spirit day on Friday and everyone was supposed to wear red (school color for both middle and high school).  And with that we realized she doesn't have a red shirt.  Not one.  I'm not sure it's her best color (must be the orange hair), but regardless, I was surprised there wasn't a t-shirt from some race, camp or baton competition in her drawers.    So, last night, we stopped at Target on the way home from baton to look for an inexpensive red t-shirt.  None to be found.  One in the boys department, but it had a Storm Trooper on the front.  Not happening.   We were looking for short sleeve (85 degrees here), but we couldn't find long or short.   No red period.   Purple, pink, orange, green and blue . . . . no red.

 I told her I would be out running errands on Thursday and would look some more. I dashed into the mall this morning, confident that a red shirt would be found in a few short minutes.  I walked the ENTIRE MALL . . . every department store and kids/juniors clothing store and couldn't find a single short sleeve red shirt. Honestly, I only found one long sleeve and it was blinged out in a way I knew would make it unacceptable to Gracie.   No red shirts.  WHY!??!    Not a blouse, not a t-shirt.   I found one spaghetti strap cami at H&M,  but as a dress code no-no, I left it behind. So now I'm left wondering, what's wrong with red?   Is it "out" this year?    How can that fly when Christmas rolls around in a couple short months?

After the mall, I tried Academy Sports, Old Navy and Costco.  No red shirts for girls.  And really, I looked at boys, too.   Finally I ended up in the Ross Dress for Less (which was both my first and last time shopping there -- ugh!) where I found a dark red t-shirt (almost maroon--praying Gracie doesn't care) that had an old-school athletic vibe to it with "Love 84" written on it.  It was $6.99 and didn't have a size tag on it, but I didn't care.  I bought it.   And now I'm anxiously awaiting Gracie to come home and hoping she says she likes it.

Fingers crossed.