in which I am the penguin

I have always envied girls with sleek straight hair, blonde with smooth honey highlights. I envy their manicures and their pedicures, and their tan arms, and their glorious white clothes. Growing up outside the Woodlands, you come to accept strawlike bleached-at-home tresses, and home manicures on splintery nails and even freckles. But I can never get over my white clothes envy. They are just so, so smooth.

Today I went shopping at the thrift store. I tried on about 15 pair of shorts and capris, looking for something that a) covers my thighs b) does not make said thighs look gargantuan and c) can be worn around people who eat spaghetti with their hands. I looked longingly at several pair of blinding white capris, but I don't live in denial. I cannot wear white. Especially white pants.

Maybe you're saying, Oh, because of your kids... no, because of me. I have spent most of my life advertising my last meal on my clothes. Just me, pre crud-wipers. I am a wee bit of a klutz. Maybe you have always noted my gazelle-like grace and now you are in shock and disbelief. Yes, I drop stuff. EVERY day. Food, clothes, valuables, especially dishes. I break a dish maybe once a week. So yeah, I tend to spread food around a little. I imagine, if I bought that gorgeous solid white tank with eyelet lace, I would manage to stain it before I even got home from the store, while it was still in the bag. ((sigh))

I love white. But we will e'er be star-crossed.

Oh, and if you are my friend or my sister, and you have sleek perfectly highlighted hair, and perfect nails, and you wear white pants, I don't dislike you. I just look wistfully on, the way I imagine a penguin would watch a giraffe, wishing he too could fetch leafy greens from the sky....