Yes, ladies and gentlemen! You might be surprised to learn that, while you're standing there, yapping loudly into your cell phone while filling up your gas tank, the person sitting in the next car can hear what you're saying…

Before we go any further, let me tell you something, you wanna-be darlings of the fashion world: unless your name is Audrey Hepburn, you do not look good in capri pants. I do not care what you look like, who did your plastic surgery, or what company your grandfather founded. Unless you are Audrey Hepburn, yes, you look terrible in capri pants. On principle.

In fact, let me amend that statement. Even if you are Audrey Hepburn, you do not look good in capri pants, because you are dead and have been so for quite some time now, and this whole hopping-out-of-the-grave-and-dancing-around bit really needs to be kept to the better Buffy episodes, mmmmkay?

As I was sitting in the passenger seat of my soon-to-be-ex-car (more on that next week), Jeff was blithely filling up the gas tank while I sat, still and ornamental as usual, waiting for him to finish up. Since Sundances have gas tanks on the passenger side, I was on the side of (and just past the) gas pump.

To my right, a nice car pulled up—you know the kind of car you buy when you're pushing 40 and are trying to balance your urge to be respectable with your dreams of your lost youth? Large, room for multiple children, and more horsepower than anyone can legally justify. You get the idea.

A rather nice, but harried-looking, brunette hopped out of the car and started filling her gas tank. Within fifteen seconds, she was diving for the phone like it was a lifeline and dialing a friend's number.

She was, evidently, on her way home from clothes shopping. "Hi! It's Diane. How are you?"

(a momentary burst of silence)

"Well, listen. I know that you've got just the best fashion sense ever, and I wasn't able to call you while I was in the store, so I wanted to ask you about something I found."

At this point she rattles off some nice, respectable-sounding clothing. Honestly, it's a boring conversation, and I'm starting to think that maybe I'm better off actually minding my own business instead of just pretending to, but then she says the words that should strike fear into the hearts of us all:

"While I was there, I was just trying some stuff on, and I found these lime green capri pants. They were the right size, but I just hesitated. I wanted to ask you what you thought."

More silence.

At which point, I wanted to reach over and strangle this woman on principle. I can only hope that the woman on the other end of this cell-phone conversation was loudly yelling the only appropriate answer to this question:

"No! For the love of God, anything but that! This is for your own good! There is no occasion, ever, for a woman to own a pair of capri pants, much less a pair of lime green ones!"

But apparently the woman on the other end of the line was not quite so considerate of the rest of the world's sighted population, and apparently chose to answer in the affirmative. Moments later, our Diane said, "Well, I also found this pair of plaid capri pants in my size…"

I really should have gotten out of the car. Not to tell her what was wrong—no, in this day and age, that virtually guarantees either a gunshot or a sexual harassment lawsuit—but to find out where in the world this woman shopped for clothes, so that I could never, ever shop there.

I tilted my head out the passenger window an inch or two and whispered to Jeff, "I gotta tell you something when you get in the car…"

He looked at me and cocked his head in the direction of the woman and mouthed, "Conversation?" I nodded.

Lime green. I can't figure out what terrifies me more—the fact that someone actually thought of buying these pants, or the fact that some clothing manufacturer had the complete and utter lapse of taste (and sense!) that made them think that such an article of clothing could possibly look good on any woman.

After all, the last time I checked, Audrey Hepburn is still dead. Has been since '93. Until someone figures out how to resurrect her (in which case Audrey Tautou is out of a job), there's nobody left on this planet that looks good in capri pants.

Nobody.