I often forget that Jackson’s not 30 years old, and then I’m lunging for the power button to turn off something that I only that second realized is completely inappropriate for someone who’s actually 10. Fortunately, we were only about four blocks away from his friend’s house (i.e., before he heard anything that would change his life for the worse) when Jackson paused my iPod and said, “Mom, I saw Britney Spears yesterday.”

Me, of course, I was thinking, Sure, you saw somebody who looked just like Britney Spears, ha ha, put Aziz back on. So I said, “Oh, really? Hm.”

But he insisted. “Mom, I’m not kidding. I saw Britney Spears. She brought her kids to the trampoline place.” And then I remembered that we live in Southern California, and that Britney probably lives somewhere in the Valley and has two little boys who would totally want to spend their Saturday afternoon at a place filled with trampolines. I pictured Britney chugging a Big Gulp, kicking off her Uggs, and jumping right in until somebody got a black eye or hit their chin and bit off the tip of their tongue.

I wasn’t sure what else to say. It’s not every day Jackson sees a celebrity so I thought it would be polite to be interested.

“What was she wearing?”

“Some green bathrobe thing.”

“Uh, hmm. A bathrobe? Did she jump on the trampolines?”

“No, all the parents were standing around her. She had four bodyguards. I know they were bodyguards because they had those curly wire things coming out of their ears.”

I knew that was the end of the conversation because then he put Aziz back on and we didn’t talk the rest of the way home.

The next day I was up in La Cumbre getting my watch repaired, and you can’t get your watch repaired without walking past the J. Crew store. (You can, of course. You can avoid it completely. YOU can. I chose not to.) The J. Crew store was having a sale. Since Jackson was with me, I said, “Let’s go in for a minute,” and he said, “I’m going to stay out here on the bench,” and I said, “Stay where I can see you,” and then I went in and in the space of 45 seconds found four skirts that had started out in the $135 range and were now down in the $35 range. Because I was nervous about Jackson being alone on the sidewalk, I decided not to try any of them on, I just eyeballed the sizes and bought them.

As the cashier was handing me my new skirts in a bag, I said, “So, are these exchangeable, in case I have sizing issues?” and he said, “No,” and I said to myself, “I’m about to buy four new skirts that are going to end up on eBay,” and then I said to him, “Okay!” I took them home and they fit perfectly, but here’s the thing:

As you can see, they’re all pretending to be different sizes. I held them all up to me in the store, and then I held them up to each other to make sure they were they same, and then I brought them home and discovered that I had a 10, two 8s, and a 6. (I just threw the H&M skirt in there for fun, because I guess I’m also a size 12.) It reminded me of when my mom died and I tried on one of her dresses and it fit perfectly: it was a size 16. So thank God my new skirts all fit on my somewhere-between-size-6-and-size-16 body.

I’m not sure what my point is. J. Crew has magical skirts? No one knows what numbers mean anymore? My body is a wonderland? And skirts are just the half of it. I also have a man’s head (since women’s hats are always one-size-fits-a-cat), and I can reliably wear either a size 10, size 11, or size 12 shoe. Actually, I take that back. I have a pair of men’s size 7 Ecco loafers in my closet. They look great with everything.