Shades of Gray

These are some color descriptions from the Land's End summer catalogue. Close you eyes an picture: island lime, vivid yellow, rich red, leaf, white, and admiral blue. One could wonder about leaf, is that a leaf in spring, fall, or winter; but since it's the summer catalogue, picturing a green leaf is a safe bet.
Now, close your eyes and try to picture some of the colors described in two of my earthy-crunchy outdoorsy catalogues: silt, charcoal, ash, moss, mud, acorn, rust, sand, coal, surf, granite, dirt, fern, yam, clay, salamander, flamingo and stone.
I appreciate a little creativity but this is going too far. Like a child mixing paints who just can't seem to stop until everything turns to brown, these catalogues need to quit before they get either too confusing or too ridiculous. It's as if they are trying to outdo each other in "green" color descriptions. Not only is it confusing, some of it's down right unappealing. For starters, what kind of salamander are we talking about? The black ones with the yellow spots that are getting all kinds of press lately? The little orange ones we've seen in Four Ponds Conservation Area? Frankly, salamander just makes me think slimy thoughts, not something I want to think about when I think of new clothes. And how about mud? Mud makes me think of what my kids clothes look like after it rains and they've been out playing in the - well - mud. Again, not how I picture new clothes.
There's a skirt I was thinking of ordering but I can't choose between dirt and fern. I should probably go for dirt, that way, when it gets dirty, no one will notice. Yams aren't a vegetable I want to eat much less wear. At this stage in my life yams remind me of baby spit up and I have that on my clothing already. As for coal, isn't coal a dirty, non-renewable pollutant?
A lot of the colors are all just the same color. A sweater for example that comes in henna, mud, and rose. I'm having a hard time choosing because basically they're all brown.
When the earthy-cruncy catalogues aren't coming up with 50 different mud-based ways to say brown they have another way to say it: coffee. There are sweatpants in espresso, t-shirts in coffee, pants in java, a reversible cardigan in latte, and a skirt in hazelnut.
I finally decided on some tunic pants. In black.

song: Shades of Gray • artist: The Monkeys

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