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I don’t like those high waisted keep-your-tummy-in ladies dress slacks
with their matching faux snakeskin belt that don’t match anything else
I own or would ever want to own. I hate shoes without laces. They’re
too tight and too loose in different places at the same time, and they
make me walk funny trying to work out a rhythm to minimize the damages.
Already I can feel blisters the size of Boston. And the bra! I’ve
never understood how such a garment can be so well behaved in the
fitting room at the store, and in the bedroom getting dressed, and in
the car on the way to meet the governor, yet the moment I walk into the
reception area with my smile ready, I’ll find that one of the shoulder
straps has leapt off my shoulder and will resist all subsequent
maneuverings for the rest of the evening. My bra encircles my ribs like
a boa constrictor with the elastic irritating my skin, and still it
manages to creep up on me every few minutes. All these entrapments of
womanhood are torture, just barely tolerable, but the real trouble is
the earrings.
They dangle, one on
each side of my head, bumping into my neck with every move, tapping,
nudging, pushing me around. The places where they go through my earlobe
are growing larger, the thin brass hooks becoming an anchor chain for
the QE II. The earrings are made of metal disks—a smaller one tinkling
against the one in the back, with three small beads in complementary
colors clinging to swinging wires like barnacles. The earrings are
neither heavy nor large, yet they engulf my awareness, surrounding my
head with their subtle accusations. They weigh a little over forty
years, years spent waiting for the fashion police to take me away, to
accuse me of being an imposter. You see, I didn’t ever master the
girlish art of those flimsy little sandals back when I was a girl, and
well, things just seemed to go downhill from there. I don’t see any
point in wearing earrings with my hiking boots. My sneakers and sturdy
brown oxfords serve me well with my naked ears, and I rarely care what
people think of my fashion sense, or lack of it.
Yet each time now when
I am expected to dress up, it’s those darn sandals and earrings all
over again, whispering my inadequacies with every dangle. “You’re
not like the other women,” they say. “You look ridiculous. You’re
not doing it right. You’re not like the other women.”
This time I come to my
senses within the hour. It’s true, what they say. I am different, but
isn’t that a good thing? Wouldn’t the world be a terribly dull place
if we were all exactly the same? I remove the earrings and lay them
carefully in a nook of the car’s center console, where they can
torment me no longer. With a final tug at my bra, I tuck in my tummy and
feel a genuine smile fill my soul. Wasn’t there a popular song years
back declaring that you’re never fully dressed without a smile? I
don’t believe earrings ever held such a place in the Top Forty.
Mary
Ann Benyo may be contacted at mab310@bellatlantic.net
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