Lookin’ goooood

High stress times of the year are great for people watching.  I mean those times of the year when everybody is at high stress.  Like Christmas, or the more politically correct Holiday Season.  It’s always a bit of fun to watch what people are doing and wonder why they thought that was a good idea.

It’s even more fun to look at what people are wearing and wonder why they thought that was a good idea to wear in public.  Oh, I’ve had my share of moments.  Yes, I have gone to the local Target in flannel pajama pants and an old sweatshirt.  Of course I ran into people I know.  It’s the only time I do.  If I stop by on my way home from work, it’s all strangers.  Not a soul I know.  But let me head out lookin’ goooood, and people from other states that I haven’t seen or heard from in years will be waiting for me.

Lookin’ goooood is the phrase we use in our house to refer to lapses in fashion judgment.  We hijacked the phrase several years ago when my brother Aaron was in town for our oldest daughter’s wedding.  We were driving through the downtown area – ever a Mecca of high fashionistas – and saw a man strutting down the street with no shirt, pants sagging WAAAAY down, comb-over hairdo, man-boobs and belly flapping freely.  Aaron paraphrased the strutter’s morning mirror conversation:  Got up this morning, looked in the mirror, said, “lookin’ goooood!  think I’ll walk downtown without my shirt on.” I wanted to believe that surely the strutter could NOT have looked in the mirror but unfortunately, I’d guess my brother was spot on.

There’s even a website to document some of the lookin’ goooood choices of the folks who shop at Wal-Mart.  What the heck.  Trouble is I’ve not only seen these people, on occasion I’ve been these people.  Sigh.

I’m of that age which can remember when women were horrified if the seams in their stockings weren’t straight, men wore hats that had brims not bills, and Sunday best had nothing to do with your pro football team’s performance.  The dress code at the local public school had nothing in it about how long your skirt had to be or prohibitions against beer/drug messages on your T-shirt.  T-shirts were worn UNDER real shirts for heaven’s sake!  Only the bad boys who smoked cigarettes out behind the gym wore T-shirts.

That makes me sound really old – and my kids think I am.  But I can’t be all wrong.  How many television shows in recent years have focused on helping people look like they are actually adults with jobs?  “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style“, “What Not to Wear“, “Fashion Police” just to name a few.  My favorite was a complete do-over show called “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”.

Few of us actually get this kind of help.  We’re left with real lives where we have to choose from our closet.  And that makes high stress times of year especially interesting.  I am not really concerned with the fact that how I’m dressed ensures I’ll be watched closely on the security camera – I’m looking for those little hamster things.  You know, this year’s equivalent of Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Dolls.  And I need to find it NOW.  And I need it to be on SALE.  And I need you to stay out of my WAY.  And…

…I need a martini.  Then I need to sit back and enjoy watching all those frantic shoppers who are lookin’ goooood.  Tis the season.