I Totally Meant to Do That (14 page)

I can’t figure out how hosiery manufacturers stay in business. No one under sixty-five wears hose. And women over sixty-five probably get a discount. The only other hosiery-wearing segment of our population I can think of is drag queens. But only 11 percent of the population is gay, and only half of these are men, and less than half of this group likes to sing onstage. I suppose film-set designers occasionally purchase hose to hang over clotheslines in fictional shantytowns … but that could only be, at most, a couple hundred pairs a year. And there are also the pairs that criminals pull over their heads before robbing quickie-marts, but those are shoplifted anyway.

I won’t pretend to have investigated the causes behind the cultural shift away from panty hose, but I imagine it has something to do with the word “panty.”

Agreed. For example, the fading tie-dyed canvas bag on the shoulder of the fifty-seven-year-old with wild hair says, “I’m too tired to fight the establishment anymore.” And the brand-new, multipocketed backpack on the clean-cut older man says, “I’m a pedophile.” But I suspect Ms. Simpson-Giles’s admonition reaches beyond general aesthetics; usually the statement made by a woman’s purse is a
written
one, such as “Louis Vuitton” or “Kate Spade.” Additionally, each of those written statements says one of two other things: either “I need you to know I have money” or “I need you to think I have money.”

OK, Mom’s right: I’m a reverse snob. But if there’s anything
I learned during the two years I spent busting Chinatown counterfeiters, it’s that the only statement a fake bag makes is, “I flew in from Omaha and all I got was this shitty bag!” (Hmm, sounds like I might be a good old-fashioned regular snob too. That would explain the self-loathing.)

All I want is to avoid making any statements, period. I would chalk this up to New Yorkification, but really it’s a lesson I learned in college. If you are wise enough to recognize that, although that subculture gets the most press, most young black men are
not
gangsters, then you must also admit, no matter how prejudiced you are, that not all sorority girls are idiots. It’s just that the ones who get the most press—who advertise their sisterhood via T-shirts, emblem baseball caps, and lettered pendants—are
exclusively
idiots. In college, they gave the rest of us a bad name. They made it impossible for me to wear any of my own Tri Delt T-shirts because, thanks to them, those letters made their own statement: “Date-rape me.”

That lesson stuck. Ever since, when I receive a designer bag or wallet from my mother or aunt, I painstakingly remove the label before carrying it. I can appreciate the make and look of a purse without needing the world to know who’s responsible for it. And yes, I realize this means the only difference between me and that fifty-seven-year-old with the wild hair is that I have slightly better taste. But I’ll tell you this: I bet she never got date-raped either.

Um, I know this one already. Not because I’m a lady. Because I’m a wino. Unless those are the same thing, in which case I am way ahead of the curve.

Like the bit about the slip, this highlighted entry is more than a general suggestion. My aunt is making a specific behavioral critique. Since I’ve been old enough to wear makeup (let’s say fifteen; that is, JonBenét was
not
old enough) my aunt has been begging me to do so. “Darling, don’t you want to put on a touch of lipstick?” “What about some mascara?” “How about a little rooooouge?”

Over the years, I’ve fired back with several logical traps. “Are you saying I
need
makeup?” to which she dutifully responds that of course I’m beautiful without it but “imagine how much prettier you
could
be.”

Usually some mention of “You never know when you’re going to meet a man” is thrown in, at which point I counterattack with, “The guys I like prefer women who don’t hide behind a mask.” That usually gets me a “Hooooaahh!” in Doppler effect as she huffs out of the room.

My disdain for cosmetics stems from many sources, but I’ll mention just one. My roommate in boarding school wouldn’t leave our dorm without several layers. To visit the commons area, to get frozen yogurt off campus, no matter where we went, we first had
to wait while she applied what she called her “daily confidence.” I don’t need to explain why that’s twisted.

To be honest, though, I’m mostly just lazy. It takes ten minutes to apply the stuff in the morning, plus an extra ten throughout the day to touch up, and another five to remove it at night. I could use that time to exercise, which will do far more for my appearance than lipstick. And if I end up spending those accumulated twenty-five minutes watching bad reality TV instead … well, there’s nothing in Ms. Simpon-Giles’s book about motivation.

So instead I force them to stare at my crotch? While, at the same time, bumping my rear into the unsuspecting heads of those sitting in front of us? This makes no sense at all. Does the maxim also apply to church pews? Because then, the one who’d be forced to stare at my backside is Jesus. And if his job is to judge the quick and the dead, I don’t want him assessing the size of my ass.

In truth, neither option is sound. Whether you enter facing forward or backward, those already seated will be indisposed. That is why, when faced with a crowded row, I seek out a peopleless route. Typically, this involves finding an empty row one or two away from
mine, walking down to the middle of it, and then crawling over seats until I reach my own. No one is disturbed and I get some exercise: win win.