Pulling. Them. Off. (And other lies I tell myself)

Today, I failed.

As I have previously alluded, I started this semester vaguely obsessed with some idyllic notion of being fancy.

Where this idea came from, I have no idea. I am not a fancy person.

Clearly.

But at the expense of my poor toes, my scrawny wallet, and my completely irrationally high self-esteem (seriously, no one who looks like me has any right being nearly as happy and well-adjusted as I am), I have spent the past four weeks strapped into heels, expanding my wardrobe, and actually making that odd pale Munchkin in the mirror look like a young professional.

(Also, “M4nchkin ‘N da MiRR0r” will be DJ PNT BUS’s first album. Look for it to pre-sale on iTunes soon.)

The strangest part of these four weeks is that I seem to have actually been pulling it off. And I was pretty proud of it, too! I had fooled almost everyone around me into thinking that I usually wear heels and tights and makeup and dresses and even that I shower EVERY DAY. As guilty as I felt about this insane long con, the benefits outweighed the bloody toes (because it turns out toes don’t actually weigh that much). I had almost started to believe it myself: Megan Binder, well-dressed 20-something.

But alas, if only I had a courtesan to whisper in my ear, “Remember, Megan, thou art lazy!” For I broke the greatest rule of all in this dangerous game. I believed my own con. And that can only lead to failure.

I am ashamed to admit it, to break the illusion, to ruin the carefully constructed lie that I have fashioned so diligently these past few weeks, but here it goes: I wore an outfit that I had ALREADY WORN ONCE BEFORE to work today.

I am a failure. REAL fashionistas never wear the same hair color twice, much less the same dress. I fear I have been outed as a Slob. It is truly the end of an era.

An era is like 12 days, right?

Besides that, work was good. I ate a donut!

So I fell over in the Metro yesterday…

A few of the people in my office very kindly let me tag along to Happy Hour after work on Thursday.

It was rather fun, and a great way to chat with some of them outside of the office. After an hour or so, we started to pack up and leave, and one of my co-workers (and her husband who had joined us) mentioned that they had parked out in Shady Grove, on the Red Line that I take home. So we all took the train together.

At this point it was about 6:30, or, as I like to call it, Everyone-In-The-Greater-Metropolitan-Area-Is-On-The-Metro-Right-Now p.m. So we smushed onto the train, my coworker’s husband kindly found her and I a place to sit, and we braced ourselves for our sardine-like journey.

All was well until we got to my penultimate station. Thinking myself clever, I got up in preparation for my stop, said goodbye, and squeezed my way to the door, where a kindly little old man looked at me and said, like an early ’90s video game level boss, “It appears that you are trying to leave.” When I told him that that was indeed my intent, he graciously moved out of the way….just as the train came to a sudden halt and I fell over into a crowd of harried commuters.

Years of living with Mandy have robbed me of any grace I might have possessed at some point, but generally I do not fall over. Even more rarely do I fall into a crowd of people, and even less often than that do I do it in front of a senior colleague and her husband.

Thus, I did not know the protocol to dealing with pure mortification. The mass of commuters quickly shoved me back into an upright position, and at least two men offered hands to help me into an upright position. Which was kindly and all, but my mind became consumed by a single, driving desire to escape the scene of the shame as quickly as possible. As soon as the doors opened, I was gone.

So that’s how my first week of work ended: sprinting up the broken Woodley Park Metro escalator to hide my shame.

Welcome to the real world, Ms. Binder.