The Outfit: A dark blue shirt with red collar and red horizontal stripes from my first job working in fast food. A pair of light grey pants with thin dark grey vertical stripes, a "Hammer-Time" low hanging crotch, and elastic waist. A yellow scarf was knotted around my neck. A pair a black tennis shoes with high reaching white socks completed the look. Oh yeah and a short sleeved wool, belted, grey shawl thingie. The shawl, when paired with a respectable outfit, really isn't that bad.
On my way to class, I stopped by the Shell gas station to get the second half of my breakfast, a diet soda with caffeine. I walked in with a cheery "hello", grabbed my soda and went to pay for it. The clerk didn't seem fazed. I don't know if it was a statement about his typical clientele, but I decided to try for a reaction. I said, "I hope I can beat that traffic and get to my interview on time."
At that his eyebrows went up and he said, "Go for it."
On the expressway I realized my pants were made of some horrible itchy fabric and I began twitching in my seat. In the parking deck at school, I gave my legs a good going over before leaving the car. Can't scratch like that in front of people.
I decided, after careful consideration, that my persona for tacky day was Diva. I went into the restroom and stood in front of the mirror fluffing my Afro, twisting this way and that and grinning with approval. As women came to the sinks, I began to fuss with my lipstick choices before making a poor color choice and applying it.
What I noticed right off the bat is that with a high held head, a confident glint in the eye, and a strut, no one says anything. No one laughs.
I went to my usual seat in the theater-styled classroom. Front row. I looked as many people in the face as I could, with my chin tilted two inches higher than normal, without missing a step and hurtling toward the professor's desk. Not one smirk. So, I took my seat. I checked myself to be absolutely sure I was tacky, and indeed I was a hot mess.
After that class, it was off to Russian where my classmates chatted with me with not a second glance at my getup.
Here's something else, I myself couldn't have cared less about my outfit. I was neither embarrassed or apologetic. I was me. I didn't know what to make of that. Is it a sign of conceit? Self confidence? Or maybe our outfits matter less than we think, even to ourselves.
It got me to thinking about the lack of reactions. I wanted to be laughed at, questioned, and ridiculed. Didn't happen. I was, for the majority of the day, on a college campus where self-expression runs amok. But I think it's more than that. I think that it has little to do with a confident air and more to do with the fact that most of us are the stars of our own show. And when everyone is the star, there is no audience. What am I saying here? I'm not entirely sure, but I know that fewer people tune in to our show than we all think...
The next day I went to the mailbox with my sweeping broom in hand, a pink fluffy housecoat, and unshaped hair. This better not become a habit.
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