I'm So Juicy

My wardrobe consists of clothing that is gray, black, and...well...gray. I may have a few sweaters or Columbia PFG shirts of different colors, but I'm mostly a monochromatic kind of person. The joke about wearing black only until they come out with something darker...yeah. That's me. It's not that I'm all gothic or emo (two terms i despise, btw), it's just that gray and black go with everything, and it always looks good.

So imagine how proud of myself I was when I went to the Columbia Outlet store near The Boy's house and found a pair of khaki linen pants on sale for $9! In my size! I thought, "Wow, Stillie...you're stepping outside your comfort zone and you'll look good doing it. People will SHIT when the see you in khaki-colored pants!"

I'd already picked out the shirt I would wear with the aforementioned pants, and I was all revved up and ready to go to work. I was worried about wrinkles, but since The Boy was still in bed and I didn't want to wake him up, I only turned on my closet light and looked at myself in the mirror on the outside of the closet door. I looked good!

Some of my co-workers did double-takes, but nobody said anything. I was perfectly happy with that, to be honest. (I wore a skirt one time and everyone made a big deal out of it. So I never did again. There was a reason I wore it and it would probably get me fired or thrown in jail, so I'll just stop there.) And as the day wore on, I sorta forgot I'd even put on different clothes than usual.

My 7th period is rowdy and although they piss me off royally, we have a special kind of relationship. I turned my back to the class to write on the board. That's usually when they come up with their most off-the-wall, off-topic, bizarro questions.

"Miss...you shop at Juicy Couture?" one of my little Hispanic girls in the front row asked. Her voice had that sort of surprised and disturbed tone to it.

"Yeah. I do go there on occasion. I really only buy a couple of things there. Why? Can't I shop at Juicy? You think I'm too old?"

"Of course you can shop there, it's just that...well...I don't know. It seems kinda weird."

"Yeah, well...don't freak out if you see me squeezing oranges in the produce section of a grocery store too, okay? I am a human with dietary needs." I am always sarcastic and kinda brazen with them; it's our game. And that kind of shut them up. And we went on talking about why spell check doesn't always work.

(my sentence is "Their is know weigh this is write" and I put it on the board to point out why spell check doesn't work. it's a good lead-in.)

It never occurred to me to ask them why they knew I shopped at Juicy.

So the day is over and I'm walking out of the building. The hot male janitor is behind me. (We used to have a thing, right after I got separated. Dick was way too big. It was useless to me.) I'd waved as I went past him, and he began walking in my same direction.

"Hey, there, stranger. I guess you've been too busy to talk after work, huh?" That was our usual time to flirt, way back when.

I slowed up and let him catch up. "Kinda. You know how it is. Administration changes always bring back-breaking work for the competent."

He shoved his mop in my direction. "Yeah. Tell me about it..." He was quiet a second and then said, "So. Is there ever a chance we might be able to..." his voice trailed off and I was pretty sure I knew where that was headed.

"I don't know. I mean, you know The Boy's living with me and we're pretty serious..." I know he's seen The Boy's pictures. For God's sake, he dusts my desk.

"I know about him. But I sure would love to pull your Juicy panties off of you with my teeth. I just loved your body..."

At this point, I knew that two mentions of Juicy Couture in one day was no mere coincidence. I mean, I am so anti-girly that it's not even funny, so it was really very troubling that this happened.

But, as per usual with me, as soon as he wandered off and I started yakking on my cell phone, everything else was forgotten.

I got home and went straight to the bathroom to brush my teeth after a particularly nasty, flat swig of Dr. Pepper from an old bottle in the refrigerator. I just happened to look up and saw, from the 360 degrees of mirrors around me, so very clearly: "ERUTUOC YCIUJ" in a half-circle shape on my ass, only slightly obscured by my new Columbia khaki linen pants.

All day. Everyone. Suckage.

Lesson: Do NOT pick out panties in the dark and then survey your fully dressed appearance in the semi-dark on a new pair of pants' maiden voyage! EVER!
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