If you’re a girl in college, you
probably know what it’s like going out in public looking like shit. Midterms
are approaching and all of your excess time is devoted to studying. You don’t
have time to properly occlude all of the stress-induced hives that you’ve
recently developed after writing that 8-page research paper with thick layers
of foundation and eyeliner. You likely landed a lecture that takes place at
some horribly inconvenient hour after barely surviving the sudden death battle
royale that is course registration. In fact, you may just be avoiding looking
presentable all together out of spite. Because your college hates you and
doesn’t want you to learn anything and wants to plunder you of your tuition
money for more years than it really should take to graduate.
Or maybe none of that applies to
you because you listened to your parents and did well in high school and didn’t
end up at some third-rate college in the ghetto like I did.
But whatever your circumstance, be
it as constant and unlucky as mine or completely incidental, you’ve probably
been underdressed in public before.
So what do you do when you’re
looking particularly hideous one morning but you still want to be noticed in a
positive light by potential suitors? Well I happen to have a groundbreaking
anecdote that may just help you resolve that sort of incredible egotism.
I’m not particularly tolerant to
overly warm temperatures. As a matter of fact, anything above 80 degrees
Fahrenheit is liable to have me as inclined to burst into flames as volatile
swamp gas. Being that my college campus resides in the stagnant heat of a
southern California valley and that I stubbornly commute to school in a poorly
air-conditioned SUV for a good 40 minutes as opposed to simply dorming, I, one
day around a month ago, accidentally subjected myself to weather conditions for
which I had no means of adaptation.
It was a Wednesday and I was late.
I was also fairly delirious from many consecutive nights without sleep. And to
top it all off, it was hot as fuck outside. As I stumbled about campus in my
drowsy super-heated stupor, I passed several glass windows that rendered dull
images of my reflection. My worn consciousness began to lethargically piece
together that on this particular day, I looked like a complete ass-hat. I
hadn’t had the time that morning to clean myself up because I was preoccupied
with putting the last touches on a research paper that I had already spent all
night writing. My hair was tangled and shoved into a beanie, my ‘clothes’ were
actually the pajama pants and camisole that I would have slept in if I had been
more responsible and wrote my essay earlier in the week and at that point,
while I was sweating acrid buckets in the godforsaken heat of the valley, I
could have easily been mistaken for one of the homeless people I often found
sleeping in the bathrooms on campus. Had my trip to the lecture hall been
somewhat longer, I probably would have noticed the most eccentric thing about
attire that day, but it wasn’t and I was already bumbling around aisles looking
for a seat, just as the professor began going over new material.
It was then that I began to relax
somewhat. I allowed the air conditioning of the lecture hall to encompass my
sweat drenched body and soothe the tension that had been building in my head.
Although still sleep deprived, I was at least no longer on the verge of a heat
stroke and I was able to begin think properly and take notes. As the lecture
wore on, there came a point at which my right shoulder began to itch. It was
likely due to the frayed ends of my uncombed hair tickling it a bit, so I extended
my left arm to brush the hair out of the way and scratch the itch while I kept
my eyes on the power-point presentation.
And that’s when I felt it.
My blood ran cold.
Adrenaline shot down my spine.
Any ounce of calm that I had gained
by sitting in that air-conditioned room became plague insects fluttering around
incessantly in my gut.
All dullness in my consciousness
from lack of sleep was replaced by a panicked alertness.
When I had reached over to scratch
my shoulder, my forearm grazed what it definitely should not have grazed under
normal circumstances:
My right nipple was having a little
vacation from my camisole for all those of the adjacent aisle to behold.
“Christ almighty” I thought. “I
forgot to put on a fucking bra this morning”
And that is how you get boys to pay
attention to you when you look like garbage.
