I am going to have to get serious about coming into a large sum of money. As we all know, only the very wealthy can have their idiosyncrasies considered charmingly eccentric.
In my current tax bracket, I am going to be swiftly labeled as just a dotty old lady.
Or perhaps it is my task to provide friends and strangers with a good laugh, right up until my final demise. I can come up with no other silver lining for the rapidly increasing number of goofy things I do.
This treatise was inspired when I stared down at my feet while waiting in the coffee shop line one day last week. Heads turned when I loudly exclaimed, “Oh, for Pete’s sake!”
The lady in front of me looked at my face, followed my eyes to my feet and said, accurately, “Forget to take off your slippers?”
I wear sandals every day, but the fact that these were lavender and fuzzy may have been her tipoff. The rest of my outfit was navy blue.
It wouldn’t have surprised me if everyone ahead of me had stepped back so I could get my caffeine more quickly. It was clear I needed some.
The fortunate thing about living hereabouts is that I wore those silly slippers for the rest of the day and nobody else noticed. I know what that says about Southern California’s dress code. We have none.
One of my workplaces is predominantly filled with guys. Not just any guys. These are young, “we are no slaves to fashion” and “wear your cleanest dirty shirt” guys.
Besides, I don’t remember the last time a man remarked about what I was wearing on my feet, so I knew this particular faux pas could go largely unnoticed. I think the women just tactfully kept silent.
Many of the teachers at my school are absolute fashion plates, but I am conveniently behind a desk most of the day, so my fuzzy, lavender transgression was nicely hidden there.
Every now and then, however, I would stick my slipper-clad foot up, to share with some I knew would appreciate it. That, I have found, was the fastest way to take the sting out of the fact that I apparently can’t always dress myself.
I got lots of hoots and howls from my absent-minded approach to footwear, but I was warned that if I wandered in wearing pajamas, they were going to have me forcibly removed. Shucks.
The day I forget to get dressed and wander out in my jammies, I’ll want nothing more than to be taken away to some nice, quiet place.
This latest step on the path to “going funny” may have been a little embarrassing, but any woman out there will understand when I say if my choice is more full-length mirrors or the occasional slippered foot, my fuzzy, lavender choice is clear.
Jean Gillette is a freelance writer walking comfortably around North County. Contact her at [email protected].
