Bowing To The Absurd

Sometimes there are things you witness in life that are beyond, reproach, comment, or criticism. All you can do is laugh and, as I overheard someone so eloquently express, "bow to the absurd".

These are the kind of things that comedians relish, those things "you just can't make up". You watch without comment, but you're silently thinking, with deference to the humor of Bill Engvall, "Here's your sign".

One such example of this absurdity was standing about two people in front of me in the checkout line at my local grocers. I made every attempt to show how "cool" I was by not reacting with giggles and sneers, like so many others around me.

You see, there was this girl ...my bad ...young woman standing in line with the demeanor of an aristocrat patiently waiting for her groceries to be scanned and bagged. The cashier was beside himself and couldn't keep a straight face, and to that extent, I felt sorry for the customer ...although she seemed totally unaffected.

Why were the cashier and the surrounding people sniggering and staring? [She] was standing there in a plastic wig. Not a wig whose hair strands were made of plastic fibers, but a hard, solid, one-piece simulation of a hair style. Atop this, she wore a hat similar to that frequently worn by Minnie Pearl (of the Grand Old Opry).

The excessive coloring applied to the apples of her cheeks formed two bright red circles, and the obviously painted-on freckles were over sized and made her look like a doll. Her retro-style ensemble consisted of a red and white polka-dot oversized child's dress, (think Lily Tomlin as Edith Ann), a bright green bolero-style jacket, white ankle socks, and finally, red mary-janes jellies.

Oh, yeah, she carried a woven straw purse that matched her woven straw hat.

I've always felt that camera phones were an excessive bit of nonsense, but oh, how I wish I had one at that moment. Everyone around me, under the pretense of talking on his phone, was capturing this unique vision for posterity. Having lived in New York and now in San Francisco, you'd think I'd be immune to this kind of thing, but I never fail to be amazed when confronted by [these people] who choose to live on the fringe.

[She] paid for her groceries, and pushed her cart out of the store, giving no credence whatsoever to all the attention. Although, I suspect that the attention was, in fact, the objective. The "look" was too contrived to have been poor fashion sense, or the creation of someone mentally challenged. It was definitely a conscious choice. To dress like this, for whatever reason, whatever the statement, you have to have a lot of self-confidence and skin as thick as a rhino's.

We've all said (at one time or another) that we don't care what other people think, that our own opinion of ourselves is all that matters. And yet, considering all the attention paid to fashion, grooming, and body image, we're all very concerned about that image we project. Which raises the question, "...the image we project to whom?" ...those very people whose opinions we don't care about.

Quote of the Week: "How you look depends on where you go."