Fashion and Coffee

Coffee is a sweet addiction and on the weekends going up to the coffee shop takes on a special significance because I get to get my coffee without rushing, in a t-shirt and jeans, and not on my way back or forth from work. I also get to stop in to see my daughter who works near the coffee shop at this very cool gift boutique. While there a man comes into the shop with his wife. They are about my age. He makes a comment about my t-shirt that says Rock Boat Alumni from the Rock Boat cruise I took this winter. He links it up with some crazy scandal about football - already he is losing me. His wife is shopping away so here I am trying to explain why they are two different things and I was not advertising my participation in this wacky event to which he is alluding. It's about music, my friend. JUST MUSIC.

Okay, that's cleared up.

Then that sets him on another track. He asks me if I was a hippy. I hated to break it to him but in the day I was a sorority girl. It is clear to me that his wife is the standard for how a woman "of a certain age" ought to look. Tailored shirt, nice pants, big jewelry, hair above the shoulder. Perfect southern belle. She's gorgeous but it's not my style. I don't want to be perfectly put together just to hang out on the weekend.

Evidently, there's a price for such fashion rebellion. And the line you have to cross to be considered as having committing such a crime is easier to skip obliviously over when you are 50 than when you are 20. Here's the thing. I'm cooler now than I was at 20. Trust me on this point. And, shocking as it may be, I still like t-shirts and jeans. I don't want to be tailored and coifed seven days a week. Furthermore, If I want to wear a damn t-shirt to get an expensive cup of coffee, I'm going to do it.

Luckily Clinton and Stacey didn't jump out from the back of the store to start my fashion intervention. However, I got an impromptu one without any credit cards of tv show appearance from this guy. I guess old guys in baseball caps with pretty wives that you have never meet before think that they should feel free to tell you in so many words that you are blowing it if Clinton and Stacey aren't available. This seems rather unfair when you think about it.

Oh well.

So there I stood in jeans and nice comfy t-shirt, long blond hair way falling down my back in curls I had to pay for, dangle earring that cost more than the more generic stuff she was wearing (I'm just saying), and silver shoes (my nod to dressing up when I shouldn't have to do it). I guess the silver shoes were not enough to override the other aspects of my outfit and he doesn't know enough about jewelry to realize I was holding my own and better in that area (I love nice jewelry).

Evidently it is a given that at my age you must switch from dressing however you want to being uncomfortable all day in the name of fashion sense so men you don't even know can give you the nod of approval - even though you didn't ask for it and don't care one way or another.

Can't a girl just relax?

No?

Excuse me, I'm going to go put on my Nickelback t-shirt and go shopping. If you are a guy wearing a baseball cap don't say a word unless you are a Nickelback fan.

And by the way, I'm not cutting my hair either.

Comments

[purple chai]

I guess when my time finally comes to go, I'll be wearing jeans, a t-shirt, a big denim shirt over that, and sneakers or crocs. Even if I'm 80. If I wore something else I wouldn't recognize myself in the mirror.

[l'empress]

As it happened, I *liked* the "dress for success" look when it was popular. I did not wear it when it wouldn't have been appropriate.

How you dress is completely your own business. And guys who wear baseball caps for every occasion are bad enough, besides needing a reminder to take off their hats indoors. (What d'ya think -- gray or bald?)

[Margaret]

You should see ME on the weekend; you would feel like a total fashion plate. Right now I'm in grungy shorts and a t-shirt with pieces of lawn all over my legs. And I would go up to get a coffee, just like this--if it weren't 72 degrees here. Doesn't that condescending and officious man know that you're NOT SUPPOSED TO WEAR A HAT INDOORS? He needs to bone up on his own dress etiquette!

[Spritopias]

As the youngest commenter so far I will say to this person, "MYOFBDB." As long as you're wearing a bra, you're okay. My only fashion rule is that underwear is a part of the uniform.

[Wyndspirit]

No major stains visible on the clothes, no underwear showing. Those are my only rules. When we go into a facility, we're supposed to dress to match the dress code of the facility. Except every facility I've been to has a uniform or scrubs. We don't have a uniform, and we have a hard enough time explaining "nonmedical" without showing up in scrubs. Lately I've been wearing my oldest jeans. I'm spending my days on my hands and knees oiling a teakwood floor! I'm not about to ruin my few pairs of better pants.