Karen and I accompanied Sev and Lisa on their quest to get Lisa a coat suitable for their trip to France. We walked into the outlet store, and we hadn't been in there for more than ten seconds when one of the ladies said, "The coats must be upstairs; I don't smell them."

You may think I'm joking. I'm not. These ladies can find silk, in a store full of fabrics, just by following their noses. Now, I know women can differentiate between the sixteen billion shades of "off white" because the cones in their eyes have a tetrachromatic sensitivity instead of the trichromatic sensitivity of male retinas. But to be able to tell fabrics apart by smell, from a distance, is absolutely mindblowing to me. But I digress.

Anyway. The leather coats were in a separate room, with a locked door. We asked a salesperson to open the door, but the person with the key was downstairs. She paged the person, and we waited. And waited, and waited, and waited. The manager finally showed up, unlocked the door, and watched us like a hawk. We all looked around at the leather coats. And then I saw it.

A black leather trench coat for $140.

I'm trying to save money. I really am. Karen wants to go to England on holiday (and so do I), and with her trying to get into graduate school, we'll need to save every penny in order to compensate for the loss of one income while she's a student. But the coat was so cool; shades of The Matrix and Le pacte des loups and Shaft all rolled up in one.

But it was warm, and I do need a warm coat (I had, short-sightedly, gotten rid of all my winter coats when I moved to Florida). And Karen thought I looked sexy in it, and she can wear it too, and it was a really good price. And I've always wanted one. So, even though I felt guilty about it, I bought it. Now I want cold weather so I can wear it. Come on, cold weather!