What Not to Wear

Have you seen the show? Some poor woman, getting by day-to-day, is secretly recorded looking less than her best. Her well meaning family appeals for help from the ever stylish Stacey and Clinton. They set up a fashion intervention, ambushing her and offer a deal; bring all your clothes to New York where we will tell you everything that is wrong with all your choices, we’ll give you $5,000 to buy the right clothes, fix your hair, your makeup and transform you into a new, and better, woman. We, the audience, would watch in rapt attention hoping that we didn’t also own something “wrong”, but knowing we did and secretly wishing for some guidance in our own closets.

I had a version of that on Friday, in the continuing saga of Paula’s Nasty Skin. I had hoped we had come to the answer, a chemical found in many daily products, like shampoo, body wash, hand soap, toothpaste, laundry detergent … the list is endless. I had meticulously removed every offending bottle and tube that contained the stuff from my house, and was finally finding relief from the mind-numbing itch. Except that with distance from the light therapy and steroids, the rash came back – not the itch – just the rash. The root cause lies elsewhere.

The doctor had also raised formaldehyde resins as a possible cause and advised a layer of white cotton between my clothing and me. I had taken the advice to heart and cornered the market on granny panties, V-necked men’s tees and cotton camisoles. I was good, right? Wrong. As my brother once said, “If you’ve got a bucket full of water and someone pours in a cup of urine, do you have a bucket full of water and some urine? No, you’ve got a bucket full of urine.” The doctor was really clear; I had to remove the offending chemical from my wardrobe. Completely. No mercy. Dead to me. Gone. I should consider those items of clothing as forever, What Not to Wear.

I started on Saturday morning, looking at every item of clothing I own for signs of the poison. I opened a large black trash bag and started sorting. Any T-shirt with cotton/modal or cotton/polyester blend, out; 100% cotton can stay. The Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, interesting, the blue are cotton/polyester/spandex – gone; black are cotton/spandex – they stay. The cotton/polyester blend dress – gone. Anything with rayon, gone. Corduroy, wool blends, Tencel, color-fast, no-iron, wrinkle-resistant, get rid of it. Yoga pants; exercise pants; most of my pajamas; two of my favorite tunics; leggings; three evening dresses; all my dress pants; most of my blouses; three suits with mixed fabric lining; and so on. A leather coat with lining, my daily wear winter coat and my favorite post gym UWM hoodie, all had to go. By the time I was done and I had filled seven black trash bags. Seven.

If you are like me, your closet needs a good going over, but this was ridiculous. As I surveyed what was left I found a two common themes. The higher end dresses I own were safe to wear, stuff purchased at lower end stores was full of poison. I also found that my warm weather clothes were mostly spared. I was able to keep all my shorts and most of my tanks, swimsuits, sundresses and two of four beach covers. I view this as a sign. Shopping for new work clothes, outerwear, sweaters, even jeans and comfy pants just got a whole lot more complicated. I need easy. I need carefree.

I need a beach.

I was a chicken at White Hen!

During the month of February our community had an All-City Read. The adult reading selection was The Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam. The book is a memoir and one of the many activities planned for the month was a workshop focused on memoir writing. A bit of arm twisting from a friend found me at the three week session. 

Each participant wrote three different short pieces, based on a theme, along with a 6-word memoir. Last night we each read one of our selections aloud at a coffee shop. While it would have been much easier to read my six word memoir, “Underwater creatures never mind candid photos”, I read the following:

A Day at Work

He looked sketchy the first time he came into the store. He showed up again several hours later. I’m not sure if I had looked intimidating, but when he attempted robbery my co-worker was behind the cash register, and I was behind the deli. Previously I had been alone.

He asked for all the cash in the register. Had it been me, he would have gotten it, all bagged and ready to go. My co-worker had different ideas. She decided to engage in conversation. She started with “you can’t be serious” and progressed to “I know you!”

They bantered back and forth. Yes, she was convinced he had been in her history class. No, he argued, he had gone to a different high school altogether. Were they flirting? I stood behind the deli case and just shook my head thinking stop it, Stop It, STOP IT! I’m no martyr, this store isn’t worth it, and besides, he said he had a gun.

They continued the discussion, a pocketed gun pointed in her direction. I was frozen in place. She was laughing at him and he was continuing to press for the money. Finally, he got frustrated and left. I ran to the door, threw the lock and told her to call the police. The squad arrived and she asked them to call her sister to drop off the high school yearbook.

Twenty-minutes later, she had found his picture and pointed him out. Later that evening the officer came by again and said they had found him at his parent’s house, watching TV in the basement with his dad. He had only a comb in his pocket, no gun. My co-worker felt like a hero having saved the store! I wanted to kick her.

I went on to work there for another year, calling in the occasional shoplifter. Once, the dumpster was set on fire, and the whole back of the store had to be hosed down by the fire department. But never once did I ever feel the need to best the hero of the store.

True story and thanks for indulging this brief writing detour.

Music that resonates:

The Theme from Rocky -- Bill Conti