I could eat a buffet off my own pants.

I made a critical fashion error last night. I left the house looking like a homeless person. I should have known better. Every time I roll the dice and say, "Screw it, I'm just running down here and no one will see me," I end up seeing 42 people I know and at least one person with whom I've applied for a job. Every single time I went home from college and did this, I'd see the people I hated most from high school and would spend the rest of my break carefully coiffing and spit-shining myself so the rumor wouldn't start that I was a crack addict. 

Now, I didn't go full homeless last night - I had showered, my hair was sort of combed and earlier in the day, I'd put on a little makeup, most of which I had napped off by then - but I was definitely rocking some serious homeless-chic clothing. (And, let's be honest, my hair wasn't THAT combed.)

Here's how it happened. Tony took a half-day off yesterday and we were just hanging out. We took a walk downtown, had a gyro, took a nap. About 7:30, we decided to go see the new house. I just walked out the door in what I was wearing - a snappy ensemble of my scrubby jeans and a pirate shirt that used to be Tony's, but shrank too much in the wash for him to wear. It is still huge on me, though. Oh, and my FitFlops. Nothing matched, nothing fit, certainly nothing looked good. 

I figured we'd just walk out the door, get in the car, drive to the house and come home. I should have known better. 

The minute we walked out the door, it was obvious we weren't going anywhere soon. There were fire trucks, ambulances and strangely, an SPCA truck parked in front of our condo parking lot. Seems that a hawk had attacked a person on the street, leaving them both injured and in need of rescue. (I wish I could make this stuff up. I actually watched the hawk be transported off the scene in a cat-carrier.) While we were waiting to get out of the lot, we met two new neighbors and saw some of the people from our building. They, of course, were all wearing cute workout ensembles with shorts that fit and shirts free of bad screen-printing. 

Once we were on the road, I looked in my visor mirror to discover, to my horror, that none of my makeup had survived the nap and my hair looked like I'd slept on it after electrocuting myself. Great. 

At the new house, at least, I could dash from the car into the house and no one would see me, right? Wrong. Everyone was out in their front yards, watching as we drove s-l-o-w-l-y by, allowing them all to have a good, close look at my hair and makeup. Super. At least they couldn't see that I had to cuff my pants because they were too long to wear with the aforementioned FitFlops. 

Since the neighbors all knew now that we were moving from a shelter downtown, I threw caution to the wind and suggested we stop for ice cream. We don't know anyone, really, in Northern Kentucky, so how bad could it be?

Bad. 

At the ice cream shop, we had to wait in line 15 minutes, while cars on the highway slowed down to point and stare at my pirate shirt and crazy hair. Then, when we sat down to eat our cones, everyone got real chatty. I guess they'd never seen a homeless person up close and wanted to see how lucid I was. (Not very, since I came out in THAT outfit.) One guy wanted to know all about my Mini Cooper and another couple was trying to sell us landscaping and custom drapery. WHY WOULD YOU TRY TO SELL ANYTHING TO A WOMAN DRESSED LIKE ME? And Tony wasn't really any better - his shirt had holes in it from the dog chewing it. We looked insane. 

To make matters even worse, while I was talking to the custom-drapery couple, I dripped ice cream all over my jeans, leaving splatters of Chocolate Lovers Trash (I dumpster-dive even at the ice cream shop) up and down my leg. We got back in the car and I sunk low in the passenger seat to avoid more embarrassment.

But God was not on my side. When we got back to the condo, we had to take Beau, our Bouvier, out for his nightly pee. Normally, and I mean 99% of the time, we wouldn't see anyone else out there. Not last night! Oh, no. Three of our neighbors came home all at the same time, two from work and one from a jog, to see me standing the backyard, screaming at my dog, in my ice-cream stained scrubby clothes. 

Oh, the indignity. It's a good thing we are moving because I just can't handle the pity I see in their eyes.