Gloves

On Friday or Saturday nights, I usually glance at the clock and see that it's about 6:50 p.m. and realize that we should leave for the theatre in 5-10 minutes. This is a signal that I should get out of the sweat pants I'm wearing them, put on clean(er) sweat pants, check for grease stains on the sweatshirt that goes over the t-shirt I'm wearing, find my shoes, try to remember if I changed my socks in the last couple of days or not, and head out to the car. I get into the car and pat my hair to try to remember when the last time I brushed it.

We're on our way to the theatre.

I don't even think about the people who come in sequins or (faux) fur coats, or with dangly sparkly earrings and high-high heels.

I shuffle into the theatre looking like an unmade bed. And I don't really care. I'm at work and I don't seem to think that I need to dress up to go to work.

I've noticed my colleague does the same thing. He's usually in scruffy jeans, old shoes, an untucked plaid shirt and an oversized sweater or jacket. He probably looks better than I do. But not much.

How the times have changed.

When I grew up in San Francisco in the 1950s, you never went out to the theatre or even to go shopping downtown without being dressed to the 9s. That meant a good outfit (a suit, but never a pants suit), stockings (held up by the garters on the girdle)...

...high heels, a hat, jewelry, make-up, and gloves.

My grandparents dressed up to
go downtown

I didn't think about it at the time, but I hated those damn gloves. I started wearing gloves to church when I was in grammar school, and I hated them every Sunday. They made me feel claustrophobic. I remember sitting in church trying to take the gloves off, while my mother made sure that I kept them on, because that's what proper young ladies did. I felt the same way with woolen mittens, or those fingerless blobs that connected by a long cord up one sleeve, across your back under your coat and down the sleeve on the other side, so you didn't lose them if you decided to take them off.

(I sympathized with the 3 little kittens. They didn't accidentally lose their mittens...they hid them from their mother!)

Does anybody wear gloves as a fashion statement any more? I have a pair of gloves. I actually wear them, but I wear them when my hands are cold. They are Isotoner gloves and they feel good when I wear them, but unless my hands are cold, they never come out of the drawer where they sit most of the time (assuming they aren't just lying on the kitchen counter gathering dust, which is probably more accurate!)

How happy I am that we live in a much more relaxed era and that I can go to the theatre looking like an unmade bed and at least not having people staring and pointing and laughing at me.