Bedazzled

It was late and I was on Amazon.

I have no clue about fashion. I wear t-shirts with sayings on them (often hand-me-downs from my  kids) and hoodies.

Oh, and I have a zippered garment bag of my “normal-person disguises,” clothes I wear when I am not allowed to dress like an 8-year-old boy. The garment bag is necessary to protect them from dust.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I realized this past weekend that I dress (sort of, in a distorted way) like a Texan woman. Go to a mall in Houston and you will see clothes bedazzled with rhinestones, topped off with marabou feathers, in tiger and zebra prints. And no, you are not in the little girls’ section (I checked), you are in the section meant for adult women.

I went to visit my son at college in Oregon. Arriving for the parents’ tour, wearing my rainbow-colored sneakers and my bright purple down jacket (for Texans, cold weather is novel and fun), I realized that all the other parents were wearing expensive hiking gear in earth tones. Oops.

Place has a definite effect on your clothes. I remember, when our kids were small and we lived in New York City, we went to Disney World in Florida. My husband and I laughed when we got back to the city. People at Disney World wore pastel colors, were super-friendly and also, sorry to say, fat; people back in Manhattan were skinny and wore scowls and black.

Also, in New York, I remember seeing an elderly woman on the bus, wearing her coat, just so, accented by a pretty pin. I thought, I hope I dress like her when I’m old … but that’s not looking likely. At the rate I'm going, I’ll probably be the little old lady in the bedazzled baseball cap.