Mix and match

I've seen it all.

While waiting for the incredibly inept pharmacy assistant to train the excrutiatingly slow cashier how to download and print a digital passport photo for me, I passed the time by watching shoppers amble up and down the aisles at Walgreens. Entertaining me while comparing prices for a variety of cold medicines was a woman clad in sweatpants and a real fur coat.

It was real, I'm telling you. The luxurious pelts swayed gently as their owner squatted to look at the ingredients in Tylenol Cold & Flu.

I'm not big on fur anyway, although I wouldn't harrass anyone and I certainly wouldn't waste a perfectly good bucket of red paint by tossing it at a hapless flu victim, but I did turn down my mother when she tried to pass on her mink coat to me. It's just not cold enough here, I reasoned. Plus, I don't know a single person my age who wears furs. Wearing one would really make me feel out of place. And I'd never mix and match it with a worn pair of sweat pants.

But who am I to make fashion judgements. I have been known to throw on my purple sweats, a pink shirt, and my husband's oversized red coat. Not exactly color-wheel friendly.

When I finally got my passport photo handed to me, I looked like I just got out of rehab. Perfect.