Saving Face?

First, let me say that I am a woman who has only left my home a handful of times in my adult life without first grooming my hair and applying cosmetics.  I try to look my best, even around the house.  One of those times, I was too sick to care how I looked when I visited the pharmacy for medicine.  Another time was when I fell at my home and broke my ankle in two places.  Of course, my appearance was the last thing on my mind that day as I sat in the hospital emergency room looking like a train wreck, my ankle bound in an old rag and duck tape. 

Yesterday was a cloudy, rainy day and I dragged myself around the house for hours, drinking coffee in my pajamas, before finally getting dressed.  I pulled a comb through my hair and washed my face before going to my aunt's house for a visit.  I had decided to not go through my usual ritual of curling and fluffing my hair or making up my face, complete with casual earrings, etc.  It was going to be just me and the girls.

Upon arrival at my aunt's house, my sister-in-law, Alice, met me saying that they were on their way to buy groceries at Walmart.  She invited me to go along.  I protested saying that my hair was a limp mess and my face was naked.  However, I did need a few items and she easily convinced me to go along.   As we drove across town, I told myself that it was only Walmart, that no one would pay any attention to me, and that everyone was self-involved and didn't really care about my appearance anyway. 

I was beginning to enjoy the free feeling of being there in my natural state when I rounded an aisle and came face-to-face with a man I hadn't seen in TWENTY-FIVE YEARS!  I bravely smiled, calling him by name, and stated that it had been ages since we'd seen each other.  He looked at me with a blank stare and I could see he didn't recognize me.  There was still time to get out of this.  I had the urge to run but I was stuck.  Finally, I told him my name and a smile of recognition came to his face.  As we chatted and caught up on each other's lives and the people we had worked together with, all I could think of was how humiliating it was to have an old acquaintance see me looking so bad after twenty-five years!  What were the odds?  Wasn't it bad enough that my face was twenty-five years older than back then?  And, wasn't it even worse that I had gained weight since those young, lean days?  I knew I appeared to be a woman who had let herself go.

I'm still kicking myself over it and will for awhile.  I suppose it could have been worse though.  I could have had something green stuck in my teeth or a strip of toilet paper clinging to the bottom of my shoe.  Anyway, I learned a valuable lesson and from this day forward, I will carefully apply my makeup and fluff my hair before I leave the house... even if it's just to take out the trash because every now and then, the odds are against you.