Wanted: DQPS

I need a drag-queen personal shopper.

Not for me, mind you. I’m not exactly one for flashy clothes, I don’t do justice to any designer handbags, and I’m far too klutzy in normal shoes to even attempt a walk in heels. I need a DQPS for Ms N.

Ms N is a fashionista. She knows her stuff when it comes to style – she can look at a handbag and determine instantly what shoes best bring out its inner beauty. She can scan the racks at any clothing store when the new lines come in and without so much as breaking a sweat isolate the passing fads from the garments that will endure. She has a quality that I can’t quite put into words, but if I could the words would probably be French.

I, by contrast, am fashion-blind. I look at the clothing stores and see racks and racks of garments that all seem pretty much the same. I go apparel shopping with all the gusto I can muster, but eventually I get overwhelmed and wind up spending my time figuring out which of the round racks spin fastest. (FYI: Tightly packed racks don’t lose as much of their kinetic energy as sparser ones – swinging garments slow down the spin.)

This would not be a problem if I was a regular guy who paid no intention whatsoever to buying his significant other gifts that she’d like, use, and/or appreciate. In fact, were I the type who thought a big-screen TV or a bowling ball pre-drilled to my finger size constituted romantic gifts my life would be much easier. Ignorance is bliss, after all. Until you come home one day to a bowling ball in your big-screen TV, that is.

Alas, I have been cursed with good intentions. So I try. And it doesn’t always work well.

What am I to do? I don’t get what makes a handbag fashionable. I don’t get why one pair of shoes accents an outfit while another pair – though very similar – fails to compliment the message the designer was intending to send. And I don’t get why you can’t match black with blue. But I want to buy gifts for someone who does get all this stuff. I want to be able to give her gifts that make her feel as special as she makes me feel.

Herein lays the need for a drag-queen personal shopper. Apparently drag-queens are very much in tune with the world of fashion. They have a sixth sense, it seems, that your average man does not possess. What gives them this extra sight, I do not know. They are able to reach into the deep recesses of their minds somehow and tap into something deeper. I suspect it might have to do with the tightness of their tuck-unders.

I don’t know if I have it in me to fill the Straight Guy role on Queer Eye – I would look good for the end of the episode and then gradually regress to something similar to what I am now. Plus I’m not sure how I’d feel about Carson peering in on me when I’m changing. I’m not sure which is worse – him trying to flirt with me or him not trying to. Yet just because I am less inclined to join the fashists myself doesn’t mean I have to sacrifice Ms N’s wants and wishes.

Ms N left La Cage Aux Folles enamored by the shoes the guys wore. She pointed out their handbags and I could hear a touch of jealousy. They had attained enlightenment, they had reached fashion nirvana. That’s who I need helping me when it comes time buy her gifts.

So now all I need to do is find some guy named Marla. Perhaps then my good intentions can yield good results.