rule of thumb

Never wear clothing that is smarter than you are.

Cautionary tale follows:

A few weeks, ago Amy and I went on our usual Thursday-night date and did a big girly mall outing, because she had heard that Benetton was having a 50%-off sale, thereby making a few items almost barely affordable. The intelligence turned out to be good, and I was so intoxicated with the magic of the moment that I bought two things that are now feeling extremely lonely and scared in my closet. They are not at home with my wardrobe. For one thing, they’re not black. (Oh, the tragedy of a segregated closet!) In fact, one of these newcomers is not just not black. It is WHITE. It is PLEATED. It is a white pleated skirt. The mind reels.

But the skirt turned out to be nothing compared to the pants.

I should have known better. I have, in the past, encountered these types of wily, bewildering clothes. I’ve tried on shoes with elaborate lace-strap-ribbon thingies that look as though they should wrap around my legs in elegant summery lattices, but refuse to cooperate and somehow manage to tie themselves in knots around my ankles instead.

I didn’t buy these shoes.

I’ve run across dresses and tops that have utterly stymied me in the dressing room. Dresses and tops that seem to display the fashion equivalent of tonsils or gallbladders—dangling straps and random appendages and extra sleeves and so forth, obtrusive and so apparently useless that they could only have been overlooked by evolution.

I didn’t buy these dresses or tops.

But these pants. Somehow, these pants got the better of me. Even though they had buttons and ties and strange, confusing openings, I couldn’t resist them. And the thing was, I thought I’d figured them out. Not right away, mind you. Amy can testify to that. The first time I emerged from the safety of the dressing room—after much muttering and some muffled cursing—I had them on backwards. (Just to really fuck with you, Benetton likes to put their tags—the classic sartorial clue to proper frontness and backness—in the front. Diabolical!) But I shuffled back in and turned them around and came back out. And then, the fateful moment: I looked in the mirror and actually liked the pants. Now that I had them on correctly and everything. Wow! That’s so crazy! Hey, let’s be crazy and buy some red wraparound pants!

So, so naive.

The day I first wear the pants to work—August 9—is pleasantly cool. A high of 72 degrees. Breezy. Around 2 in the afternoon, I decide to make a library run. Standard stuff. I load up and head out. Ah, what a lovely day. And what a lovely pair of pants, all flowy and not on backwards. I stride confidently down the alley.

Then things start to turn sour. As I’m crossing the parking lot behind work, one of those innocent breezes turns mischievous, nosing its way between the layers of fabric and trying to tug them apart. Whoops! Okay, no big deal, they just flow a teensy bit more than I thought. No one’s around anyhow. No problem.

Moments later, another breeze gets rather more aggressive. A bigger swatch of skin sees the light. This is getting sort of alarming. Especially as I know it’s only going to get breezier when I reach the street. But sitll no big deal. I�m sure it will be fine.

I reach the street.

It gets breezier.

I come the closest I’ve ever been in my life to actual, public, underwear exposure.

And then I come exactly that close again. And again. About 10 more times, I’d say.

My hands are completely full of books (topics: Cherokee history and culture, southern African cuisine), leaving me to try and cradle the books in my arms while using one hand to clutch at my fugitive pantlegs. I am no longer elegant and flowy. I am hunched over and sort of flailing.

But turning back is not an option. Half the books are due this very day, and, having recently paid a very hefty fine, I’m not about to accrue any more. So I grit my teeth and hold my pants and forge ahead. I reach the library. I deposit my books. I take a deep breath and I make my way back—mercifully, with two free hands now. I soldier on—albeit like an indecently-exposing soldier who has been outmaneuvered by her pants.