Bad days
It's frustrating to have things that you learned when a toddler suddenly change without knowing why.
This is the dilemma I find myself in. It's no big problem and is easily rectified if I am aware that it has happened.
The front of a garment is bigger than the back, or should be. The neck is cut lower than the back. The manufacturer's tag and washing instructions are usually attached to the back of the neckband and the shoulder seams are more to the back than the front of the garment.
So why is it that lately my sweaters, sweat suit tops and pants end up back to front once they are on my body?
It's not that I neglect to check the back and front before I don the garments. They seem to twizzle around somewhere between my arms, legs and head and end up with the instruction tag below my chin and on my tummy.
Lately, each time this happens a picture comes into focus of what probably was an embarrassment to the wearer.
Our grandson Jay. and Naeemah, his bride to be, held their wedding rehearsal dinner in his mother's shady garden on a balmy September evening.
Guests mingled about and introductions were made. Our daughter Jan, mother of the groom, introduced me to the minister, who later that evening would walk the wedding party through their paces in preparation for the next day's big event.
The minister wore black slacks and a well cut cream T-shirt with a ribbed yolk and crew neckband. I noticed that the neckband creased slightly over his Adams apple.
To see the results of the back to front syndrome on another person amused me and I remarked to Jan that it appeared to me that the minister was wearing his T-shirt back to front. Curiosity, and the hope that I was mistaken, Jan and I made our way through the guests to get a back view of the subject of our interest, the T-shirt.
Sure enough. The neckband at the back was low.
If he realized this later, I can imagine his embarrassment.
So far, I've caught my back to frontness before mingling with the outside world and am comforted with the thought that these foolish things can also happen to the best of people.
But I have to admit that periodically a similar malady goes down to my feet.
It was one of those days when everything went wrong. My rolls weren't rising and the filling of a berry pie oozed out onto the bottom of the oven and baked to the consistency of rock.
When my fingers forged ahead of my non-working brain and were caught in the revolving door of the turntable I expounded, "Dummy!" and promptly left the kitchen.
I changed my shoes and slipped on a jacket. My route was always the same. Up the hill, past the Lakeview Care Center, down the hill in front of Elmer Sprunger's home to the Thrift Shop, then turn the corner at the Bigfork Clinic and continue to our back door.
I hadn't walked very far from our house until my uneven gait caused me to look down. One green and one red tennis shoe faced me. I cast aside the thought of returning to the house where two of the same colors awaited to once again become pairs, and continued in my uneven gait around the loop. I hoped that if I met another walker the mis-matched shoes would not catch their eye. (With those colors, how could they miss)?
In a calm frame of mind I entered my kitchen and saw the funny side of what had started as a bad day.
Thinking that I couldn't waste the remainder of the day and surely if I made a few phone calls I couldn't get myself into anymore trouble, though from experience I know that when a bad day has taken hold that I should stay away from the telephone.
I dialed the number anyway.
As soon as a voice answered, my efficiency voice (that I only use for business calls) rattled off questions about flights, times and fare prices. Lo-o-o-n-g pause. A perplexed voice came alive and said, "I'm sorry. This is the doctors office."
"Then you don't know where or when flights are leaving," I said and a short thank you, hung up and put the remainder of my calls on hold until another day.
My brain now functioning in a reasonable manner said, "Take a nap. This bad day will end. Tomorrow will be brighter."