Nobody Knows Me

Have you ever run to the store in your old clothes, scruffy jeans, old tee shirt or heaven forbid, sweat pants? You grab an old jacket from twenty years ago which has seen better days around camp fires or shoveling snow. It shouldn't see the light of day any more, but it fits so comfortably it's the one you always want to wear.

Then there's the protest of your spouse. " You're not wearing that, are you?" 

When he was in Corner Brook, his hometown, and Sylvia, my mother-in-law, asked this question, Melvin Smith always replied, "Ah, everybody knows me."

If he was visiting somewhere and intended to go out less than impeccably dressed, and was similarly questioned, he replied, "Ah, nobody knows me."

As Melvin expressed, it shouldn't matter how we are dressed regardless of where we are.

This story brings to mind a jewelry store in one of the towns where we lived. If I wasn't in my best attire, I was almost overlooked as a customer. I tested my theory by going to the store one day dressed in my best clothes, sealskin jacket, heels and jewelry, the latter two which I rarely wore. That day it looked like clerks vied to be the one to serve me.

Mark Twain said, "Clothes make the man."  Or woman. How sad!