Friday, November 25, 2011

The Style

Warning: This is not the most important post I have ever written, but it's Friday, not to mention the Friday after Thanksgiving, although I did take the afternoon off yesterday (but not, alas, today), so this is all I'm good for in the way of posts right now.

A (true) story that entertained me:

The other day, I rode my bike to one of those stores that sells Everything. For the ride, I had rolled up my pant legs, not having remembered the handy velcro strap that I sometimes use; the right leg was rolled up more than the left leg. When I arrived at the store that sells Everything, I forgot to roll them back down. I was no doubt too busy thinking about Awesome Science Things, or something.

This is relevant because, as I was standing in an aisle gazing at an astounding array of vegetable peelers, two older women stood at the end of the aisle and talked about me, loudly.

The 50-something year old woman said to her 70-something year old mother, "Look at HER! She has her pant legs rolled up!"

I was taken aback. My first thought was: JERKS.

Only then did I realize that I'd forgotten about my rolled-up pant legs, but surely someone with rolled up pant legs, even if a bit asymmetric, was not worthy of this kind of attention? I looked down and saw that the asymmetry was not even too noticeable, as the right leg had mostly unrolled itself as I walked.

Were they visitors from some planet in which rolled-up pant legs were illegal or taboo?

Then the 50-something year old woman said "See, it's just like I was telling you. THAT is the STYLE." The 70-something year old woman just made a hrrmph-like noise, so the 50-something year old continued, loudly, pointing at me and proclaiming 3 more times that what I was wearing was THE STYLE. The older woman grudgingly agreed to get some pants with rolled-up legs for her granddaughter, but she was not happy about it.

Even so, how thrilling for me! To be the epitome of STYLE! Such things do not ever often happen to me.

Too bad these women were wrong.. and strange.. and unpleasant.. and I feel sorry for the granddaughter, who will be getting a gift(?) that is not actually THE STYLE according to anyone except perhaps middle-aged, absent-minded, bicycle-riding FSPs (unless -- maybe! -- that is what she aspires to be?!).

18 comments:

Unknown said...

That was a lovely chuckle for a friday - in a little town where I feel like I can never go shopping in my rolled up pants because students are everywhere! Now I won't let that stop me since it is the style!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for a laugh on Black Friday

Mark P

Cherish said...

My MS campus, I never saw such things. At my PhD campus, I did constantly, and I couldn't figure out why the big change. I initially thought the same thing...is this some sort of style thing? The students were in approximately the same age bracket and drawing from mostly the same demographic. It was only later that I realized PhD campus was a 'commuter campus' and most of the students at my previous school lived on campus in dorms, negating the need for lots of bike riding.

Jenny said...

Sometimes when people go shopping they seem to experience an inverse invisibility effect: because they cannot think about anything other than their shopping or see anything else, clearly nobody else can see (or overhear) them as they do their shopping. I have seen this same thing happen with people speaking a foreign language (such as French in Canada ;) ).

At least they didn't get out the pepper-spray.

Notorious Ph.D. said...

Who knows? If you live in a town with a substantial hipster population, maybe it is The Style.

Here's what I wonder: why would one have to go out of their way to buy special rolled-up pants? Don't regular pants do that on their own? I wouldn't know, because History Professors (female or otherwise) are not known for their grasp on style.

Anonymous said...

I like thinking of you as a (fashion) trendsetter, FSP. :)

Happy Thanksgiving

Tina said...

Hi FSP,

(This is not meant to be a nasty question at all.) I'm wondering whether you are proud of only taking one afternoon off during a two-day Thanksgiving break, and why?

EliRabett said...

Just the inverse of ten or so years ago and walking down the isles at a food store listening to some guy discussing the choice of food with the air. Having grown up in NYC Eli knew better than mess with such folk and busily headed to the home products area, before realizing that this was an early cell phone adapter.

Female Science Professor said...

Proud is not the right word; it's just the way I like to do things. Some years, I take the whole day off for Thanksgiving, some years I work the whole day (at home or in the office), some years (like this year) I work half the day -- whatever I feel like and whatever is necessary. It's great to have the flexibility to do this.

Anonymous said...

Dear Jenny, French is not a foreign language in Canada, you know?

Anonymous said...

I have a harder time believing you can ride your bike to a store that sells everything. Our stores that sell everything are not in locations that one should be riding bikes, ie, off of roads where cars travel at a high rate of speed.

Anonymous said...

LOLOLOL...

Alex said...

French is not a foreign language in Canada

Sure it is! If they were assimilated, they'd do like the rest of this continent and choose Spanish as their preferred Romance Language.

Although I'm not fluent in Spanish, living in California I recognize it, and I'm used to seeing signs in English and Spanish. The airport signs in English and French are almost the same, but not quite, so it's weird. When I called a business, I expected to hear "For English, press 1. Para continuar en espanol, oprima numero dos." Instead I hear something in French.

Why can't those people learn Spanish? :)

Female Science Professor said...

Anon 1:50 -- It was not easy but it turned out to be possible. Also, you are limited to buying what fits in a backpack or similar, so you can't buy Everything. Or anything in large quantities. This is probably a good thing.

Anonymous said...

As someone who has made it almost to age 57 doing all my shopping by bike, I can assure people that it is not as hard as it seems (at least, not in urban California—in upstate New York I switched to walking in winter).

I recommend panniers rather than a backpack, and a bike trailer when you have really large loads. I don't haul things weighing more than about 100kg, though. Once something is that big, it is worth paying for delivery.

Anonymous said...

For riding on bicycles with long pants I would recommend these black binder clips that are available in offices all over the place. I like them more than then velcro straps and they are definitely better than rolling up the pants.

I'm talking about these: http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=950&q=black+binder+clips&gbv=2&oq=black+binder+clips&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1465l5888l0l6048l19l18l0l5l5l0l231l1990l2.6.4l12l0

Anonymous said...

Unlike Anonymous @2:52, I like the Velcro straps for keeping my pants out of the chain—they also serve as reflectors to increase my visibility at night. I prefer the ones that are nylon webbing with added reflectors, as the single-piece plastic ones tear too easily.

My father, being an old-school cyclist, prefers metal pants clips that go around the leg:
https://www.google.com/search?q=metal+bicycle+pants+clips&tbm=isch
I never found those stay in the right place for me, so I gave up on them.

Anonymous said...

You appear to have accidentally stumbled on an actual new style: cuffed pants [1]. Everyone in San Francisco and Berkeley has been rocking the cuffed pants lately. The more hipster, the more rolled.

[1] http://www.thesfstyle.com/search/label/cuffed%20denim