UNKEMPT

Many years ago while at a cocktail party I noticed a strikingly beautiful girl across the room couldn’t keep her eyes off me. Finally, she walked over and said, “I know you’ll think I’m presumptuous and impulsive, but I just have to have a word with you.”

“I understand perfectly, my dear,” I replied with all the modesty I could dredge up at the moment. ” What can I do for you?”

“You’re a darling,” she cooed. “It’s your jacket collar. It’s all twisted and it’s driving me crazy. Would you mind fixing it?”

She left a few minutes later with the bongo player and I never saw her again. I use the incident as an example of one of my many humiliating experiences as an incurable unkempt, undapper, scruffy individual. The entire world population seems to have taken on the responsibility of keeping me neat. I admit I can’t handle the job alone, but there’s such a thing as too much help.

Perfect strangers stop me on the street to tell me my coat is buttoned up wrong or socks don’t match. I had to talk one old lady out of tying one of my shoes. “You could trip on that loose lace!” she warned me.

It has begun to affect my psyche and brought on a recurring dream which involves a scene at my wake with my loved ones bemoaning my passing. “Look at him!” one of them says. “He was in the prime of his life!”….”We’ll never get over this,” another says , “Yes, he does look wonderful, but let me straighten that crooked tie.”

As a married man and father I could never slip past the reviewing line before leaving the house for work. “Your cowlick is standing up. Dad!”…..”If you’re not going by bicycle, you’d better pull your pants legs out of your socks, Dad.”

Having made the adjustments and almost out the door, I face the Chief Inspector with increased confidence. “How do I look, Sweetheart?”

“Just about perfect, but…..”

“But what?”

“Did you know your left ear is a little higher than your right, Darling?”

Even Mother Nature is against me. My beard begins to grow vigorously right after lunch and my lower abdomen has begun to protrude just enough to catch falling gravy and block my view of my scuffed up shoes.

I have another disturbing dream where I’ve won the Nobel Prize for literature. (Blog division) and as the King of Sweden presents my medal and reaches out to shake my hand, he notices the price tag dangling from my sleeve.

“Forty-nine, ninety-nine! His Majesty exclaims. ” Where did you get such a nice jacket like that for such a bargain?”

I wake up sobbing.