This is sad and sick and hilarious all at the same time. For the guy who doesn’t like to get his hands dirty (you know who you are, Snowflake) and are forced to stand by sulking while Mr. Rugged in the dirty jeans gets all the attention from the hot chicks, Nordstrom has an answer for you.

Fake mud jeans! That’s right. Even you can look like a ranch hand now with permanently stained fake mud jeans. Don’t look like the guy on the right, toting your Starbucks latte through the mall, trolling for female attention. Be the rugged, outdoorsy dude in the middle who has to say nary a word, just stand there in his fake mud jeans attracting chicks like pigeons to a statue.

Credit Nordstrom with this genius! No longer will you be the wallflower at the club wearing your skinny slacks and topsiders. Now you too can join the fun! Look like the lumberjack or construction dude you know she wants. You don’t have to tell her the truth until after…. well, you know. And only $425! That’s right, but you had better hurry, Snowflakes across the country are flocking to Nordstrom’s for their very own pair of fake mud jeans.

But, wait! I have an even better deal for you. For a limited time I am offering not fake mud jeans, but the real deal, authentic mud jeans. Save $325 by showing up on my farm in your favorite distressed jeans. After payment, I will personally beat the crap out of you and drag you around the farm behind my manly truck (chrome testicles and all) for 30 minutes. All for $100! ($1 per minute for extra time). I promise you the hot chicks at the club will be staring at you like never before. Through Memorial Day we are offering group rates. Call ahead for pricing.

From Mike Rowe’s facebook page….

On the positive side, Nordstrom’s isn’t purging their shelves of work-related imagery, like the owners of Monopoly did when they replaced the wheelbarrow with a rubber ducky. They seem to value icons work. What they don’t value – obviously – is authenticity.

I understand the appeal of buying broken-in jeans. I mean really, who has time these days to wait for a pair of jeans to naturally fade? I also understand the different cuts. Might as well get something that fits and feels comfortable. But they lost me years ago with their various stages of “distress.” The stone wash and the acid wash the rinsed wash and the bleached wash… And they really lost me when they started tearing holes in them on purpose.

I saw a pair of jeans at Macy’s the other day that looked like they’d been bathed in boric acid, hung up and shot multiple times with a twelve-gauge, and then pounded on a rock down by the river. They too, were on sale, for $249.00.

But forget the jeans themselves for a moment, and their price, and look again at the actual description. “Rugged Americana” is now synonymous with a “caked-on, muddy coating.” Not real mud. Fake mud. Something to foster the illusion of work. The illusion of effort. Or perhaps, for those who actually buy them, the illusion of sanity.

The Barracuda Straight Leg Jeans aren’t pants. They’re not even fashion. They’re a costume for wealthy people who see work as ironic – not iconic. To them, might I suggest the revolutionary new “Borax Wash,” which I discovered some years ago while rescuing birds who had the misfortune of falling into Searle’s Lake in the lovely and picturesque town of Trona.

If Nordstrom’s wants to carry them, the description would read something like this:

“Finally – a pair of jeans for the hard-working gent who doesn’t want to actually wear them. The Borax Wash is so rugged and so manly, they don’t even need a human to hold them up! So sit back and relax, secure in the knowledge that your work pants can’t be folded or stored like other jeans. Show the world you mean business by owning the only jeans that can’t be worn! The jeans, that can stand on their own!”