Wednesday, 19 December 2007 | Specific color blind

When I last left my mother, she was wearing a sweatshirt of mine from seventh grade. I was only mildly surprised to see it on her -- after all, it's not uncommon for her to wear sweaters of mine from that era, she was climbing in the car for a seven-hour road trip and didn't need to look especially fancy, and my mother is Practical. Lisa's old sweatshirt still works just fine, is what I imagine her inner voice saying, following up with a matter-of-fact, Plus I like the peach and gray stripes. (In my imagination the voice is silent about the fuzzy white balls of cotton that betray the sweatshirt's age, or the word "FORENZA" written in all caps across the left shoulder blade.)

I've always been rather proud of the fact that my mom has no pretense about her, and that she doesn't have a clue about fashion trends. She simply wears what's comfortable and appealing to her. That isn't to say she's a bad dresser -- she's not. She just doesn't spend much time thinking about what to wear, and she spends even less time shopping.

Which is why it makes little sense that I would turn my search for her Christmas present into such a needlessly frustrating ordeal. My mom, who often doesn't specify what she wants and isn't paricularly hard to please, simply asked for a light-weight sage green sweater, perhaps of the turtleneck variety. An assignment! I was grateful for such a precise mission and expected it to simplify the process, as opposed to the aimless shopping I anticipated for the names on my list that were followed by question marks.

My first stop was at a store known for selling millions of sweaters, no two of which are alike. I'd hoped that going to a place with such variety would increase my chances of finding the right color and style, but everything I picked up was slightly off in some way -- the wrong color, the wrong style, the wrong size, or something no one over 17 should be caught wearing. Finally, an hour-and-a-half later, to my great relief, I found it! And it was even cashmere, which seemed like an added bonus.

About an hour passed before I began to have second thoughts. The sweater I bought wasn't sage green at all -- it was olive green. I suspect that in my moment of desperation, I really wanted olive to be sage, and I got confused.

The next day I found another shop with an equally wide variety of sweaters, and spent another hour or so thumbing through their racks. This time I found one that even claimed to be the color sage (or so the tag said), but I didn't like the style or material quite as much. But since I'd discovered that sage is quite an elusive shade, I figured I'd better buy it, just in case it turned out to be the closest I get.

Shortly after making my purchase, I decided this so-called "sage" sweater was lying, and was really more of a drab light blue. My mother specifically said sage green. Even if this sweater claimed to be what she wanted, it wasn't actually green. This sweater was not acceptable.

I began looking online -- Amazon, eBay, and every clothing store I could think of -- and typing in searches of various combinations of the words "sage" "green" "sweater" "turtleneck" "oh please," but I got nowhere. Finally, during a tour of greenish pixelated swatches, I compromised on a third color, a marbled light green, from an online retailer. I didn't feel very good about this one. Even as I placed the order, I could clearly picture myself returning it.

I started to wonder if I even knew was sage was, and I began to look for it everywhere. I discovered the carpet in my office building is a beautiful sage color, for instance. But when I was in a store underneath florescent lighting, I'd lose my tentative grasp of the color, or I'd compromise out of a lack of true sage options.

I bought sweater number four the following week. This time, Todd was with me, and he was able to help me choose. However, he didn't seem to fully understand sage either, and after I kept pointing out sage on random people's clothing, he politely asked me to refrain from saying the word "sage" ever again. Sadly, it turns out that sweater number four is a very nice lime color. Not sage.

By this point, I start to question my sanity, and I wondered what I should do -- give my mother all four sweaters and let her decide, and then return the others? I'd feel silly doing that, especially since my mom would surely be fine with any of them. (For all I know, she doesn't have a good grasp of sage either.) Anyway, she'd probably be horrified to learn that her gift had turned into such an adventure, or that her daughter is an obsessive lunatic.

One last shop. What the hell. On the table, at the front of the store, sat a perfectly nice (almost) sage green cashmere turtleneck sweater in her size. Naturally, I brought it home, and added it to the pile. I hope it fits.