White Pants - Take 2

Last week, after work one day, when I was feeling particularly good about life, I bought something utterly extravagant, impractical and uncharacteristic for me : white pants.

 

I’ve TRIED to wear white pants before, but my clumsy fataslistic ways have always stained them before I’ve gotten the chance to wear them a second time.  And not just a drop of something here or there- - last time, wearing my brand new white cargo capris I proudly met Care for a walk and we decided to get a coffee for the road.  I don’t even know how it happened but somehow from the counter to the exit I had managed to SOAK my ENTIRE left leg of my brand new cargo capris with hot black Starbucks coffee.  The pants never recovered.

 

So it was quite surprising that, less than a year later, I found myself in the dressing room of some nice respectable store, ooohing over white capris again.  These weren’t even CARGO capris.  They were FANCY material ones with a cuff on the bottom.  Cool people capris.  Just wearing them in the store made me feel crisp and un-clumsy.  Perhaps I liked them for the innocent way they disguised my clumsy ways with their cleanliness….I decided to give it a go.  I could be careful.  I could pull this off….

 

Monday morning I put my new image to the test.  It was day 1 of the palliative care conference in Hamilton where NO ONE knew me OR the previous Starbucks incident.  The first obstacle was my late white pants’ nemesis : The morning coffee.  But I outsmarted myself and put my jacket over my lap while I drank my coffee.  One point for me.

 

The next obstacle was the snack at break time : juice, oranges and muffins.  I passed on the oranges.  And the juice.  And you never know with muffins so I held back on those as well.  Good restrain, Lyss- - NOW you’re acting like a true white-pants-wearer.  During the second half of the morning, though, my stomach started to rebel and its loud noises drew attention to various strangers around me.  So by the second morning break I was ready to try anything.  Anything being….bagged CHERRIES in JUICE.

 

Are you KIDDING me? I ‘d never even HEARD of bagged cherries in juice.  And the brand name of these BAGGED CHERRIES IN JUICE was Silli Fruit.  No, that’s not a typo - -the name was actually spelled SILLI FRUIT.  I LOATHE companies that find it cutesie to pretend they’re idiots who don’t know how to spell common words in the English language.  Loathe them.  ALMOST as much as I loathe conferences that only serve you Silli Fruit Bagged Cherries in JUICE for the mid morning snack.

 

But still, I was not to be deterred.  I confidently picked up a bag of those damn Silli Cherries IN JUICE and a huge WAD of napkins and a PLATE and a FORK and I marched them over to the nearest table and opened the bag.

 

They were not joking about the juice.

 

Thankfully, I was well armed with napkins.  I arranged about 10 of them over my lap in layers and put the plate on the OTHER side of the huge round table and one by one rescued the large cherries from the horrifically red staining juice and plopped them into my mouth in quick succession with my fork.

 

After the 3^rd cherry was down and my pants were still white under the safety net of napkins, I decided I’d pushed my luck far enough and that would have to suffice.  I gingerly lifted up the plate and, extending my arms as FAR as they would go, walked over to the garbage to dispose of the leftover cherries and JUICE.

 

Putting the plate away, I wiped my hands in pure delight before turning to see an entire room of people smirking at me.  Speaking for the crowd, one lady touched my arm and said, “You did very well with your white pants, dear.” 

 

Take home message : although some days I may be able to wear the pants,  it doesn’t mean I can necessarily act the part.