Out The Door

Out the Door

I was having a conversation with some friends at Trilogy Salon the other day, a conversation that men never have if they live to be 1000. Kerry and Lauren had complimented me on the straight leg jeans that I was wearing and so I immediately complained about them. Have you ever noticed that women can’t accept compliments? Tell them that you love what they’re wearing and their answer is, “Oh this old thing. I’ve had it in my closet since I was born.” Tell them that their hair looks great and they’ll tell you that they haven’t washed it since the French revolution.

My gripe was that the fashion mavens have decided that this year all straight leg jeans have to be low rise, which means that they sit so low on the hips that they only fit people who have no body circumference. The rest of us can’t find jeans that fit properly unless we trash our 401K’s.

I bought the ones that I was wearing in a larger than usual size so that I’d have a prayer of getting them around my hips so of course they were too big. I thought I’d wear a shirt on top to hide the Hoover Dam gap between my waist line and my pants but that meant having to wear a belt to hold them up which created a bulge that stuck out through my sweater. Got that? If you’re a woman you do, if you’re a guy you stopped reading this two paragraphs ago as you ran from the room screaming.

Lauren and Kerry each offered solutions. Kerry told me where to find straight legs with a high waist that didn’t cost as much as a small country, but Lauren had a truly ingenious solution. “Get yourself an invisible belt,” she said.

Seeing the expression on my face she explained that it was a very thin, clear belt that held up your pants without showing through anything and without causing a bulge in the front. Genius! She also told me exactly where to get one and how much it cost. Now a man would never have known that.

Then our conversation meandered onto the subject of what women go through in order to get themselves out the door versus what men do. Men shave, brush their teeth, throw on a shirt, maybe a tie, pants, socks and shoes and they’re done, sometimes without even looking in the mirror. For a woman the morning begins to unravel the moment the hair dryer comes out. There are mornings when no matter how many times you dry, re-wet, re-dry, mousse, gel, whip and sauté your hair, there’s a clump that stands out at some unnatural angle or else refuses to pouf out a bit so that you look like a wet lemming on the way to the cliff. And then of course there are the rainy days when you could use a blowtorch but within three seconds you’ve got a head of corkscrew curls. For those of us with short hair, a hairnet is the only option thereby achieving that cool school-cafeteria-lady look.

Then you move on to make-up which means you have to look in the mirror. That’s where the trouble starts, especially for those of us who need to use mirrors that magnify 1,000 times since we’re blind without our glasses and we don’t want to look like old Mrs. Griswold who wears her lipstick artfully smeared above and below her lips and sometimes eyebrows.

This super mirror also reveals every wrinkle, every spot, every hair that definitely does not belong in the middle of your forehead. It’s such a pleasure to wake up each morning only to discover that you’ve developed yet another thing on your face that has to be hidden under industrial strength cover-up. You know you’re in trouble when you are no longer smearing it on with your finger but a trowel. And you’re not even out of the bathroom yet.

But eventually you do emerge to face your closet and the decision of what the hell are you going to wear? You ask yourself the vital questions: Is it cold outside? Is it stormy? Are locusts raining down from the heavens? (Locusts are really hell on hair) And the most important question, do you have anything in that God forsaken closet that doesn’t make you look like the Hindenburg on a bad day?

Then you suddenly remember that you have a brand new sweater and matching slacks in a cheery color and your mood lightens. But of course the sweater is too long for the pants because the pants have pleats and what were you thinking buying pants with pleats anyway? So you change the pants but the stockings aren’t the right color so off go the pants to change the stockings but the belt is too thick for the pant loops and what is that bulge in front??? (I really have to get that invisible belt) And the pants are long so you need heels but you don’t have heels the right color and the earrings are long and you need short ones for that collar and the jacket won’t fit over the sweater. So you begin the process again and by the time you finally have an outfit that works, it’s time for bed. In my next life I’m coming back as a man. Or maybe Mrs. Griswold.