I love pleated skirts. Bonus points if it’s plaid. I don’t know if it’s from a past life as a Catholic schoolgirl or what, but I am obsessed with plaid, pleated skirts. I own five and have to actively keep myself from buying more. It rarely works, though, and come this winter I will probably have accumulated another five.

But as much as I love pleated skirts, on the other end of the spectrum I loathe skorts. They bug me. Get off the fence and decide what kind of bottom you are; don’t try to be both, because you will fail at both.

Plus, it’s just greedy.

So, with all that in mind, you can see why I find this skirt so deeply disappointing.

It’s plaid! It’s pleated! It comes in four very bright colors! It’s kid-sized, so it will be short and I won’t have to hem it! It’s $12.99! This is my platonic ideal of a kilt.

And then I pulled one off the rack, realized it was a skort, and recoiled in horror and dismay. My dream of buying all four colors for $50 crumbled. Because I am 24, and while I will wear a skirt meant for a 12 year old, I will not wear a skort unless I am playing tennis, and odds are, if I am playing tennis, it is my evil twin and I am tied up in a storage closet somewhere.

Target Cherokee Pleated Scooter – $12.99