Outed as Being Out

While I was getting dressed today I put on my socks and I pulled them up as far as they could go for fun or whatever and it reminded me of the time when I first learned that the time was over for pulling my tube socks all the way up.

For a good stretch of time when I was kid it was cool to pull your socks all the way up. Even past the knee was acceptable as long as they had cool stripes. (At least in my head it was 'cool'.) But I do remember it 'was the style at the time'.  Anyway one day I was at summer camp and I was walking around with my socks pulled all the way up and one of the 'cool kids' came up to me laughing and said, 'Hey! Push your socks down!' I looked at him and didn't really understand what he was talking about. I looked down at my cool white socks with triple orange stripes pulled up to my knee and thought everything looked cool. But that day I walked around I saw that no other kids had their socks all pulled up anymore. Saddened and ashamed, I wore my socks pulled up to my knee for the last time.

Another time I got flagged with wearing something 'wrong' was years ago when I was at work. For years I wore big giant round glasses. At some point I bought them when in my head big round tortoise shell glasses were 'in'. (Not sure if they ever were but whatever.) I wore them for years until one day my boss swung by my office and called me 'Elton'. I was like, 'Elton?' He was like, 'Yeah.. the glasses...' So of course I ran to the eyeglass place and decided it must be time for new glasses- still shocked that they were apparently way wrong.

I was by myself in the eyeglass store and was trying on different pairs of glasses- showing them to the girls behind the counter to get their thumbs up or thumbs down. After trying on like 10 pairs I put on my glasses (my eltons) and said to the girls 'How bout these?' And they laughed at me and said, 'No way!' Then laughed more. And then I told that they were the glasses I walked in with and they stopped laughing and said they were sorry... (probably for laughing but also for me personally) .

I think every adjustment I make fashionwise always stems from someone calling me out on stuff. I've worn bad sweaters till someone mentioned that they were ugly. I've worn the 'wrong jeans' far past their expiration date. Cuffed for too long too. I used to always buy shirts in extra large until I found out years later that I was really just a large. All it took is someone saying 'Nice smock'. And then I look at my tucked in shirt all puffed out to the sides and am like 'Oh!'. Dorky sneakers. Bad hair (till the very end). Bad jewelry. Bad jackets.

The thing that worries me if I'm so out of it that I can't pick up on what's way wrong... I wonder what am I walking around in now that's way wrong -but nobody has been mean enough or sympathetic enough to point it out.

ok bye!

tOdd