Nuggets of Gold!

DRESS CODE

It was the first week of my freshman year of college, and the mighty Paladins were about to open their season against their Division I-AA opponent. (Ignore, please, the fact that I obviously can't remember who my team played, or, in fact, whether they won and focus instead on how impressed you are that I know what division of NCAA football they're in, and that I even know what NCAA is). I was running late to meet some friends at the game, so I didn't have a lot of time to ponder what I was going to wear. So the usual 3.6 seconds it might have taken for me to choose which denim shorts (it was the 1990s!) and which Furman T-shirt I would wear was compressed into a 1.2-second decision.

I showed up outside Paladin Stadium and met my friends, one of whom was wearing the exact SAME Furman T-shirt I was wearing. We laughed, and I made him swear not to pull that shit at the Oscars, and we headed for our seats in the student section.

Now, I am from the South. I like to think I know from Southerners. But I was NOT prepared to enter that stadium to find the majority of my fellow students -- at an outdoor, late August football game in sweltering South Carolina, mind you -- dressed UP. The girls, hair done and makeup perfect, wore fancy sundresses and heels. The boys were in -- say it with me -- khaki pants, blue sportcoats, dress shirt and ties. Apparently, I gathered later, this is mostly a Greek thing. Which is to say it is stupid.

As evidenced by the fact that I can still remember all this in vivid detail all these years later, I guess I am a little sensitive to dressing appropriately for the occasion and location. And weather. I mean, look, I'm far from perfect. I've been known to wear white after Labor Day (Yeah! I have! I said it!). And half my clothes don't fit quite right. And I refuse to wear pantyhose in any situation. And maybe I don't wash my jeans all that regularly.

But I think there should be rules.

Like don't wear pajamas and slippers in public. This shouldn't even be a rule, because who would do that? Apparently, much of the female population of my adopted hamlet of Garner, that's who. A few weeks ago, I dashed out to a Chinese takeout place in a nearby strip mall to pick up some dinner, and the woman in front of me was wearing pajama pants (not good, but not SO bad), actual bedroom slippers (ummmm,no) and ... a terry cloth bathrobe. I mean, really? Really? I don't think it's necessary to dress up for the takeout line, and I would have given a pass (albeit a slightly snarly one) to just the PJ pants with, say, a T-shirt and sneakers. But GOOD GOD. You couldn't substitute a jacket for the robe? Just, no.

I thought it was an isolated incident, but then last weekend I was in a PetSmart in the same strip mall and saw a woman (not the same one) wearing pretty much the same ensemble, except she did have the decency to rock a jacket instead of a bathrobe. But actual bedroom slippers, and PJ pants. NO NO NO. No.

Another rule should prohibit flip-flops when it's cold. You make me weep. 

I could go on, but I feel a rage-induced swoon coming on. I believe I shall gather up my skirts and pantiloons, smooth my apron, don my gloves and depart.

TRIALS, TRIBULATIONS

OK. I know no one said this dog-ownership thing would be easy, and I know that dear Murray is just at a stage where he's testing us, and his boundaries, and we just have to live through it and look forward to a happy, well-balanced, at least semi-obedient dog in the near future. But the present is kind of sucking. In the last 48 hours, Murray has:

• Snatched a huge chocolate-chip cookie off the kitchen counter while I was sleeping.
• Removed cellophane from said huge chocolate-chip cookie by mangling it.
• Eaten said huge chocolate-chip cookie.
• Licked chocolate residue into the living room carpet at the site of the above, just out of spite.
• Kept one owner (me) on death watch after he ate said cookie (but didn't even so much as barf to justify said owner's fears).
• Jumped up on the bed in an unsupervised moment.
• Stared at me and started barking until I had to alpha-roll him to calm him down.
• Came in from the yard when called, only to accept his treat and then bolt back down the stairs and into the yard, where he eluded me by running maniacally for 20 minutes. During said maniacal running, he slipped in the mud several times, rendering himself now a chocolate lab.
• Immediately threw his dirty body onto the clean bed. Again. 
• Snapped at me when I tried to de-mud him.
• Snatched a hard plastic sandwich case from the kitchen counter while his owner (his dad, this time) was in the shower.
• Gnawed on said hard plastic sandwich case until little bits of plastic came off.
• Kept both owners (first his dad, now me) on death watch after eating said plastic case.

And I assure you, that's just the highlights. Gee, I can't wait to see what he does tomorrow!

'Course the problem is, amid this sort of behavior, he'll go and pull something like this:

And the sound my insides make goes something like this: Squish squish squish.

That said, if he snatches one more thing off the goddamn counter, I'm selling him for meat.