Animal Instincts

Being kind to animals is honorable; trying to look like them can be unseemly. Which is why I just tossed my relatively new leopard print strapless top in the garbage rather than the bag of clothes headed for some as yet undetermined charitable organization.

Charity may begin at home for most of us (exhibit A, my decision, right in my own house, to rescue some poor unsuspecting soul from wearing leopard spots), but the real satisfaction comes when we bring it outside. For some, that may mean donning an apron and wielding a ladle in a soup kitchen, for others, days spent comforting the elderly or the infirm. We all write an occasional check, which doesn't involve a huge time commitment or all that much elbow grease, but it's not always so easy to part with a buck, so let's give credit where credit is due.

Before....

I've been remiss on all of it lately, but, if you consider working part time for peanuts in retail to be charity, I could very well be the philanthropist of the year. For quite some time now, I've been spending way more money than I earn just for the warm and fuzzy feeling I get when I can take a woman who thinks a muffin top, hips distended by childbirth, and a bit of back fat disqualifies her from wearing anything other than a gunny sack and transform her into a smiling and self confident goddess of fashion. At least for a day. The mere fact that she already carries designer purses and has a closet full of shoes (the antidote to feeling as if nothing fits) in her well maintained five bedroom home does not render her any less worthy of the kindness of strangers.

Or friends, for that matter. So when two of my gal pals wandered into the store a couple of weeks ago to test out my claim that I could, indeed, make them look sizzling hot in designer jeans, I threw myself into "giving" mode and began to work my magic. My ladle was the little cherry picker type pole that helps me grab trendy little delights off of high hangers, my elderly and infirm beneficiaries the middle aged friends who had entered the shop looking like sugar deprived children in a candy store. They were skeptical but grateful, I was determined and energetic.

...After

Let me tell you, as good a feeling as someone might get from spooning soup into the bowl of a hungry person, my own soup bowl literally runneth (runnethed?) over with droplets of good will each time I watched my friends gaze at themselves in the mirror. Tops with gathers and deflecting designs in all the right places, jeans sewn together with some miracle body shaping thread and strategically placed pockets -- they were floored. To the point of being obnoxious, I might say, so wrapped up were they in admiring themselves that I began to feel a bit sloppy and in need of my own little fashion tune-up. Yes, I know it's better to give than receive, but I thought crowding my own ass into their fitting room with them so I could try on a few transformative little items would be good for all of our souls. They went along with it, although they seemed a bit peeved. I was so tempted to go and bring them some leopard prints, just to put them in their place.

The gift of giving keeps on giving. The other day, a heavy set young woman came in looking for anything not strapless to wear to dinner that night on a yacht with her husband's law firm. I sent her off, happy as  a clam, in a strapless romper with a crocheted cardigan, plus two other tops guaranteed to make her feel like a million bucks some other day. And, in a store filled with animal prints, I protected her from them as if she were a lost child about to be attacked. Who needs a ladle when you have this kind of power?

Mind you, I am not completely opposed to emulating the occasional animal. The hair on my legs often gets as thick and downy as my beloved Manny's coat, and he doesn't seem offended by the resemblance. I favor solid grays and browns and blacks, which I know can often make me look indistinguishable from your basic elephant or grizzly bear or penguin's ass. But just as I am kind to animals (I would never think of shaving one down to the skin or plucking ones whiskers) I am learning to be kind to myself. Remember, charity begins at home.

And so it was that I bid adieu to the leopard print. Had it been cougar, well that would have been a different story. For now, though, I have no need to look like a loon.