Chaos Attraction

The Clothes You Never Wear, and Why

2003-07-03, 11:52 a.m.

(I feel like I'm channeling Pamie today.)

Ages ago, you bought an outfit. It must have looked good to you at the time, but you don't really remember any more. You wake up some time later and look in your closet one morning for something to wear, and feel like you've worn everything of late. Oh, wait, there's that outfit, it's cute! How come I never wear it? I think I will today.

Within 10 minutes of leaving the house, you will find out why exactly you don't wear that outfit more often.

You have probably chosen to put one on of the three:

* A Sarong. Sarongs and other tie-around skirts are fun. Breezy, easy to put on, look tropical...But they also have one particular problem: they are cursed.

It's the Murphy's Law of Sarongs: whenever you wear a sarong out in public, no matter what kind of sarong it is, no matter how you tie it around yourself in a bunch of cunning ways, pulling the fabric openings so far around yourself as to cut off circulation so that the skirt opens at the back and not the front, life circumstances will always conspire to make sure that you end up flashing panties. Seven Year Itch, anyone?

I have gone outside on days when it is supposed to be 102 degrees out, in Northern California, and suddenly an enormous breeze comes up around me. A breeze so strong that one would think a hurricane was arriving. This will especially happen say, in front of frat boys, school children, or while walking across a street filled with traffic.

You'd think I'd learn after all these years to not leave the house if I want to wear a sarong and avoid this, but nooooo. It goes along with the Murphy's Law of Hairstyling- the second you leave the house, WHOOSH.

The only time this hasn't been a problem was when I went to Burning Man, where a sarong is one of the few practical items of garb you can wear during the day, and nobody really cares much if it blows up to your tits. Of course, I was dumb enough to wear nothing but a sarong and hiking boots the day we had to go into the nearest town of Gerlach, and spent the entire time trying to hold down the freaking thing.

* A Creeper. This is either a skirt or a dress that just can't stay down. The first skirt I ever made a pattern for was a Creeper, alas. You'll put one of those on, and the second you have to walk for more than a few steps, it starts to rise and rise. You go from wearing a midcalf to a mini in five minutes, and I'm not joking or exaggerating. It's the skirt you're constantly yanking on in an attempt to just get it to stay DOWN.

I saw one of these on a girl the other day, who had approximately 3/4 of an inch of fabric hanging down below her ass and was wearing four inch platforms while waiting in line for the bus. One had to hope she'd put amusing underwear on this morning, because once she sat down EVERYONE was gonna see it.

I have one Creeper that I decided to wear on a day when I wasn't planning on walking anywhere other than to the office and back. I figured, what's the harm? Well, at lunch someone told me there was a sale going on at the school bookstore, so I hiked across campus to go to it, then hiked back, then was walking around yapping on my cell phone and passing several coworkers ... when I realized that my skirt was completely around my waist. Thank gawd this was during winter and I had leggings on underneath, but still.

There's also the Partial Creeper. The Partial is usually one of those dresses that consists of two layers, a sheer fabric and a slip underneath. If you're just walking freehanded, the Partial Creepers are fine. But if, say, you need to carry a backpack or purse or anything that holds something and touches the fabric, it creeps. Usually only one of the layers will creep and the other will stay, but it's a dicey proposition, and still involves much pulling, yanking, shifting, and adjusting in public.

* The Born Free. The Born Free is the top equivalent of the Creeper, only it ahem, creeps in the opposite direction on girls.

I put on a Born Free today. I don't remember noticing this when I bought it, but when I first got it home I noticed it was rather low-hanging. It has this odd 5-inch poofy ruffle-thing at the top of it, and I could never figure out if the ruffle was supposed to be a built-in bra in the dress or not. In short, does it hold the nipples or not? It's hard to tell since the fabric itself will jump up and down over the nipples or not throughout the day. Also, the straps positioned the thing pretty low, to the point where I had to tie knots in the straps to help them hold the tits up better. Mom saw this dress when I wanted to wear it for graduation and said "Don't wear that around your aunt and uncle."

Anyway, I decided to go with the Born Free today because (a) it's supposed to be hot, (b) I'm seeing Dave today anyway, and (c) I wanted to wear these earrings that went with it. I figured I'd just wear a sweater in the (AC'd) office so as to not look like a total ho.

Well, I forgot I had to hit the ATM before leaving, so I went out at lunch without the sweater. Which is when I discovered walking by a reflective wall that not only was this dress a Born Free, it was also a Partial Creeper. And hell, it was such a Born Free/Partial Creeper that my right boob was outright trying to escape.

Gaaaaah.

Incidentally, one gets mucho nice treatment from Amtrak personnel while wearing a garment such as this. Which made me feel even more of a skanky ho than ever.


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