Its almost Christmas, in fact some stores seem to feel that it has
been “nearly Christmas” since October but that’s not the point. Traditionally
RTH and I don’t really celebrate Christmas, mainly due to a combination of my disdain
for anything religious and our sheer laziness to really do anything. The Christmas
vacation is traditionally a time for us to eat crap and catch up on computer
games and movies.
This year though, something has changed. I find myself having to attend,
horror of horrors, the work Christmas party! No, not mine, I never go to mine.
I’m just smart enough to realize that if you put me, alcohol and some of my
fellow employees in the same room, well let’s just say the chances of me
keeping my job are slim. Although I may bitch and complain about my job
(secretly it’s not so bad), it does pay for those expensive hours in the plane.*
No this is even worse, this is RTH’s Xmas do! That means I have to
be on my best behavior and do the “happy smiling wife” routine. This isn’t a
role I do too well and I get the feeling that RTH actually cares about his
current job. There seems to be room for him to move up. I don’t want to be the
one who messes that up for him. So no pressure or anything.
First problem to solve, clothes! I literally have nothing that is
suitable to wear to any kind of formal occasion. To quote E from work I “dress
like a boy”. That’s because women’s clothes are fundamentally stupid and not
designed with any degree of practicality in mind. Still, I realize that I can’t
turn up in jeans and a Star Trek T shirt so I enlisted E to assist me in the great
shopping saga.
The first warning sign should have been when I realized how excited
she was. Clothes shopping is a necessary evil and not a recreational activity
as far as I’m concerned. Anyways, to make a long story slightly less long. E
walked round the shop, pulled stuff off of the racks, thrust them in my hands and shoved
me in a changing room. Under duress I
put the stuff on and emerged while E and the shop assistant discussed me as if
I wasn’t there. Eventually we agreed on a fairly conservative black dress and
jacket. Apparently though you have to buy jewelry and stuff to go with it. And
then the coupe de grace, the shoes. Ok I want you to look at the picture below and ask yourself, “Are these really something a pilot should own?”
Seriously how did I ever let them bully me into getting those! No
pilot should ever own sparkly shoes! And the heels!
You know as a society we have some seriously screwed up ideas. Why
is a woman in ridiculous heels that limit her walking range to mere metres, rip
blisters on her heels and limit her speed to a snail’s pace considered
attractive but a woman in decent runners who can get from a meeting on one side
of the campus to the other in less than 3 minutes, not?
Why is the ability to paint ridiculous, unnatural colours on your
face considered a desirable skill in a woman, but the ability to improvise a
soldering iron to fix your crappy apple headphones less so? How wrong is it that I
wear stupid shoes when meeting with clients but keep my black sneakers under my
desk to change into? I mean can you imagine a guy saying to his boss “Sorry I’m
late to this super-important meeting but my heels are killing me?”
Everything is messed up, my boss praises me for wearing my shiny
new, proper work clothes but she doesn’t appreciate that my efficiency is inversely
proportional to the height of my heels. Thing is, why am I buying into this
stuff? Who is worse, “society” for making these standards, or me for
conforming?
Bizarrely enough, despite my long-standing fear of flying, I’m
going to be a lot more comfortable in the cockpit of a C-172** than I am in
those shoes.
*See I got some aviation stuff in
** and again!
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