Some Days Are Not Fully Dressed

I am wondering...have you ever forgotten an important wardrobe accessory at home? Do you know the feeling when you cannot wait to get back home and get out of your work clothes?

Years ago, I was employed by Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center. I was on staff at the Siegel Institute for Communication Disorders. It was a wonderful position at a very prestigious institution, beautifully located off Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.  Nina Kraus (a neuroscientist big in our biz) was doing her research there at the time. Several famous Chicagoans frequented Siegel Institute for services. It was quite the place to be as a young professional.

I have great memories of my time at Siegel Institute. It was a work environment all about learning and professionalism. I also have a couple of stories, stories that are pretty much the antithesis to Michael Reese professionalism. The stories involve work clothes, or lack thereof.

I was surrounded by excellence. The kind of excellence that demanded, minimally, shoes and bras.

I'll start at the beginning of the shoe story.  It was a beautiful summer day, a day with weather suggesting that a dress, sandals, and no stockings would be a perfect selection. As part of my morning routine, I placed items I needed for the day at the door. Things like paperwork, lunch, shoes. I had a bad and rather illegal habit of driving barefoot in the summer.

In a rush as usual, I swept up everything piled at the door, threw it all on the passenger seat, and drove to work. I found a convenient parking space behind the Institute and swung open the door to put on my sandals. OMG. My sandals. They did not make the sweep at the door.

One of the plusses of working at a medical center is that there are gift shops. These gift shops cater to hospitalized people. I walked barefoot to the gift shop and bought a pair of fake leather scuffs. They were beige. Of course beige would go with everything, if you are into the look that screams "I am wearing slippers." My feet screamed that the entire day.

Another time I was driving home from the Siegel Institute. The outfit I had been wearing that day required a strapless bra. Personally, I have never had a strapless bra that was pleasant to wear. It was a full day at work and at quitting time I could not stand the jabbing underwire one second longer.

I entered the bumper-to-bumper Kennedy Expressway rush hour traffic with a sequenced plan: inch along, brake, undo bra clasp, inch along, brake, lean over onto passenger seat, pull bra over the top of dress, sit up, inch along. It was poetry in motion, until I saw a truck driver. This truck driver was way above my little Pontiac Sunbird and apparently had a front row seat to my entire procedure, especially the part where the undergarment popped out.

If having a truck driver watch you remove your torture bra on a crowded expressway was not enough, this particular truck driver was quite the fun loving fellow.  Every time traffic stopped, he yelled out his window, "Hey, lady, keep your underwear on." I kid you not. He shouted this several times and then laughed with glee. I pretended to not know what he was talking about, looked around at other cars trapped on the expressway, and shrugged my shoulders, doing the "he must be crazy" hand sign.

If a truck driver ever tells you a story about the time he witnessed a young women undressing on the expressway, it was not me.

I thank God that forgetting shoes and releasing a bra can make me laugh. Not certain I could have made it through the rigors of work without an unprofessional faux pas scattered in along the way.