Fashion Faux Pas
I met my wife in 1986. I was 26 years old and working as an accountant at a small manufacturing company. I saw her talking to our purchasing manager. Later in the day, I visited Dick (the purchasing manager) and asked him,
“Is that all you do all day—talk to cute girls?”
A few weeks later, Dick called. He informed me he was sending someone up to my office. He wanted me to review a proposal and buy business forms. Confused, I asked why because I didn’t approve or perform, business form purchases. That was Dick’s domain.
He said I’d figure it out, and hung up.
Linda Hiester of NCR walked into my office and introduced herself. I figured it out. She was the “cute” girl I’d seen in Dick’s office.
Linda showed me example forms and pitched me on the idea of buying checks from NCR. I needed a couple thousand checks, so I agreed to buy them from her. She wrote-up the order and I signed it.
When I came out from behind my desk to shake her hand and walk her out, I realized I looked like a complete dork. I had put-off doing my laundry for a couple of weeks. This meant I was wearing the worst pants in my closet. These were circa 1975 Sears Robuck bell-bottom khaki’s my mother had purchased for me in high school. Ridiculous hippie pants from Sears. They were two inches shorter than my legs, making me look like the nerd-dork that I was.
I could see her blue eyes glance down at my feet and when she returned them to mine, I noticed a small smirk on her face. After that horror I vowed to do two things:
- Dispose of those fucking pants.
- Do my laundry every week.
A month later we went on a date. Two years later, we were married.
That’s a story for another day.