Sweatshirt Alert: JCP on TV

Last Wednesday, I was watching American Housewife when Taylor (Meg Donnelly) entered the Otto kitchen wearing a retro gray, purple, and turquoise color block Arizona Jeans sweatshirt from JCPenney.  "Hey, that's my shirt!" I exclaimed.  The husband looked up from his phone dubiously.  "If you don't believe me, I'll show you!" I sputtered with all the righteous indignation of a third-grader in the '90s whose Yo! MTV Raps trading card collection is being called into question.  ("You don't have LL Cool J and Dr. Dre!"  "Do too!")  Then I raced upstairs to grab the sweatshirt.  When I returned, the husband nodded, then restarted the show, paused it, and took this pic without me even having to ask.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  The husband is a prince among men.

This isn't the first time I've seen one of my garments on the small screen.  The Middle's Sue Heck had a pair of my Target pajamas, and The Goldbergs' Erica wore my L'Amour by Nannette Lepore crop top, also from JCPenney.  I guess ABC likes JCP, that mecca for middle class shoppers, even when it's on life support.  Later during the Housewife episode, Greg (Diedrich Bader) took the thread a step further when chiding wife Katie (Katy Mixon) about one of her stunts:

"I had to take all those tops back to JCPenney and explain why there were no tags and why they smelled like deodorant."

It wasn't so long ago that Mixon was doing JCP commercials with Splitting Up Together's Jenna Fischer, then after that show got cancelled, Single Parents' Leighton Meester.  Then Parents was canned too.  Will Housewife, which has bounced around timeslots for years and was, this season, forced to recast spooky and snarky youngest child Anna-Kat (easily my favorite Otto), fare better than these sacked sitcoms and their preferred yet doomed department store?

Only time and ratings will tell.  In the meantime, I'm going to wear this sweatshirt like it's 1990-something.  And reminisce about my troll collection.

Because I never owned a single Yo! MTV Raps card.  That was the neighborhood kids and my sister.

Flannel Panel: Paul Bunyan Funions

So, Kohl's

The panel has spoken: this holiday season, it's time to take flannel off the naughty list.  I know, I know.  I once declared that I'd never wear this alley cat of fabrics.  But as The Biebs once said, never say never.  (Ew.  I can't believe that I just used the "B" word.  I'm changing my pop princess reference to Taylor Swift, `a la "We Are Never Getting Back Together."  And yes, I just referred to The Biebs as a princess.)  Because flannel doesn't have to be manly or make you look like you lost a fight with a shredder.  It can be feminine and retro and sweet -- like an ad for cotton candy or tampons.  These red and pink plaids fall in that glam camp (glamp?), so naturally I had to have them.  They just looked so crisp and cozy, yet light enough to layer under a sweatshirt or sweater.  Speaking of which, for a minute, I considered calling this post "Sweatshirts: Not Just for Sweating" or, better yet, "Lemonade Lumberjack."  But those applied only to the red shirt.  Which seemed unfair and journalistically unsound, the pink one being my favorite.  

Flannel also sort of says ski lodge.  Which I find appealing despite (or perhaps because of) never having visited one.  And, of course, it also says Christmas.  Just like in that J. C. Penney's commercial with "American Housewife's" Katy Mixon and "Single Parents's" Leighton Meester:

Mixon: "I secretly love the holidays."

Meester: "Me too!  Just look at all this adorable holiday nonsense.  (Nuzzles white furry jacket).  So cozy."

Mixon (grabs rhinestone knit cap).  "I very much want this for the holidays!  (To Meester.)  Santa is always listening."

Meester (spots buffalo plaid flannel PJ bottoms and matching Wild One tee, then looks heavenward) "I want this!"

Then the two take a selfie while Meester utters JCP's current catchphrase: "It's the little things."

Because all roads lead back to JCP -- and TV.  Even if my local Penney's is now a Shopper's World.  

So yeah, flannel.  I've decided it's bitchin'.  

But I still and always will despise Funions.