Dressing For The Occasion

Have you ever noticed how the advice that we get from our parents and grandparents can come back to haunt us? My grandmother used to tell me that I should always dress well when I leave the house in case something happened and I had to go to the hospital. The premise behind this was that the shame of my having greying underwear, held together loosely with old staples would take the surgeons mind off the fact that there were far more important things happening!

This was an extension of her other advice. Don’t Prepare. And she practiced faithfully what she preached too. For about thirty five years, Nana had a small case in the bedside cabinet with a skeleton kit of toothpaste, soap, flannel and nightdress etc, ready to go to the hospital. For thirty five years, she never went near a doctor.

One year, my Aunt Hitler (we do NOT get on...) was interfering helping to clean up at Christmas time. She found an old and obviously unused bag in the bedside cupboard. And tossed it out. That year, my Nana contracted the flu. It became chronic bronchitis. This revealed Emphysema and Congestive Heart Disease.  Because she was 87 years old, she had a cough and worse for the last eight years of her life. Obviously coincidence but the irony was not lost on us. 

You decide but I put it to you that preparing for horrible eventualities is easier than living through them. If having a bag packed under the bed keeps us out of hospital for thirty five years, I would consider it to be cheap health insurance.

I still wonder, but it was a few years ago that Nana’s advice came home to haunt me. We had a property in the country a few kilometers from our nearest town. It wasn’t very big, only about twelve acres,   but it was quite a bit of work and most of our weekends (all actually) were spent working on various bits of it. On one particular occasion, we had all been at  it all day and no one could be bothered making food, despite the fact that we were all starving. 

Actually we were eying each other off and my mother had a cookbook which made specific references to plane crashes in the Andes and scrumptious recipes for preparing loved ones. It would be safer, I decided, to go into town and buy dinner, just this once!

To say that I was not dressed very well was the understatement of the century. I had  old black lycra bicycle shorts on and they had a large hole in the er, derriere where they had given up the unequal struggle with a rosebush earlier in the day. I was wearing a yellow t shirt. It had stains on it from every weed that you can imagine and there was an unidentifiable mark on the back where I had an impromptu lie down in the stables. My  socks were odd and my shoes were the cheapest canvas slip-ons available. Add to this that my hair was….well put it this way, it wasn’t exactly coiffured and you will imagine the sort of getup that is ideal for working in the garden on a country property but entirely unsuitable for going anywhere near civilization. And that is without me even mentioning the unmentionable gloop stuck to the sole of my left shoe.

Anyway, I said to myself that it didn’t matter because I was going to get take away and I wasn’t planning to get out of the car.

With this smug thought in mind, I jumped into my Dad’s car and headed off. I got to town okay and I managed to find everything that I needed. But there was a log queue at the drive through. So I turned the car off. And it wouldn’t start again. I couldn’t believe it! 

Here I was, dressed like an advert for third world poverty and I was stuck in a car that wouldn’t go. Isn’t it amazing too, how impatient people behind you can get. My face was a shade of red rarely found in nature as I realized that I had to get out of the car in front of everyone and push! To make matters worse, a young guy in car behind me offered to help. I really wish that he hadn’t as he took up his position at the back with me at the side, pushing and steering. My backside, with the hole, was exactly level with his face. And about two inches away from it. Thank God he couldn’t see my face. I kept it purposefully hidden in case I saw him again the following week in the supermarket.

I live in a small town and the only hope that I had not to see him again was to pray that he was a tourist. Or visually challenged. With a woeful memory for faces – not that he saw mine.

I am happy to say that the car went eventually and I was able to escape. But I am sorry to admit that I did not escape with my dignity intact. I would have been less embarrassed (possibly) if I had been standing there with nothing on at all! My unsympathetic family did not help either. I am only glad that if laughter is really the best medicine, they will be all dosed up for ages.

There was one happy outcome from this though. At least I didn’t run into anyone who I knew. This usually happens. When I take great care with my appearance and leave the house feeling pretty damn fabulous, I may as well be on another planet. I don’t run into a soul that I know. There is no one around to appreciate the cut of my skirt or the two thousand dollar snakeskin boots that I am wearing (no, I am not joking, just don’t tell my husband…). But if I venture to stick my nose outside the door with even slightly unwashed hair, I see everyone. Especially men. And although I am married, men still matter because no woman alive wants to be seen by her male friends looking less than supermodel perfect. I am sure that the men feel the same way too.

I want my husband’s friends to be faintly envious (OK then, downright jealous) that he has landed such a cracker!

My apologies to women’s lib who I have just set back around two hundred years. It’s true though. There seems to be two sorts of women in the world, those who admit that they care about their appearance and what people (men) think of them and the liars. I care and I take it very personally if I have made an effort and I don’t see anyone.

But despite all of this, you will be happy to know that the drive through incident has taught me something. My Nana would be happy to know that my hard lesson has been learned. I never go out of the house anymore without full makeup, high heels and at least designer casual wear. Formal ball gown, long gloves and serious tiara to pick up the dry cleaning, that sort of thing. 

And you know what? Not only do I never see my friends or anyone else who I know even vaguely but the car (touch wood) seems okay and it has been excellent for my diet because I have never ventured through that particular drive through since.

© Debbie von Grabler – Crozier 2014.