Why Thank You
For years I’ve joked that the worse I look, the more people find me attractive. I don’t know why that is or how it works, but it does. If I don’t shower, if I go out wearing my sweats, if my hair is back in a pony tail, those are the days when I find men checking me out, people smiling at me from across rooms, and a general feeling of being well liked. Meanwhile, when I spend hours curling my hair, putting on makeup, and picking out the right outfit, I’m pretty much guaranteed to stand by myself. Weird, but pretty accurate.
Today this went into a new direction. This morning I had a list of errands to run. For some reason, I decided to start this all by going to the Y. Yes, I decided to exercise before running around town. Because I knew I’d be working out, I didn’t shower this morning. Instead, I pulled my hair back into pig tails and tossed a headband on to cover up the grossness.
Two sports bras (yes, two), a stained tank top, and my workout pants and I was ready to rock. I did my 45-minute workout and while I can say that I felt great afterwards, I didn’t look so hot.
Then came two different stores before walking through the Wal-Mart frozen food aisle. This is where our story takes place. As I was perusing the frozen pizzas, staring at them longingly, a tall, good looking man with ripling tattoos and a faux hawk walked by.
He turned to me, and with no lead in, no preamble, said, “You look radiant, by the way,” and then walked off with a smile.
Radiant. Radiant? Really? I think my “glow” was the sheen of sweat from the 85 degree weather outside, but other than that I don’t really know where that came from. In 27 years I’ve never been called radiant and today, looking like this, I heard in standing in front the Stouffer’s frozen meals.
I had a moment or two feeling weirded out. Then I began wondering if someone was behind me. Then I thought maybe he was stoned. Then I decided to shut up and take the compliment.
Apparently, I look radiant today.