Vanity thy name is...?

So there I was last week at a 6th grade Indo-Chinese end of year performance. Since I had been sewing and gardening all day, "helped" ably by my five year old, I was forced to shower and spruce myself up a bit for the event. (Not that I don't shower or bath, I just try to avoid it more than once a day.) Now, when I can be bothered, I clean up quite nicely, and this particular evening I was feeling somewhat flamboyant into the bargain. Even though it was the end of May, coats were still required last week.

I did the usual five minutes of "Why did I chuck out all my clothes last year?" in my closet, then remembered about this dashing "duster" I had purchased last October. Almost as soon as I bought it Chicago was plunged into a 6 month long, frigid winter, requiring ugly parkas and balaclavas for the duration. This coat is very long, looks like suede but is in fact a soft, un-creasable cottony fabric, and gives one a Crocodile Dundee swagger. Fabulous but casual - a bit like m'self. (Sorry - I know you could see that one coming a mile off.) Several people commented om my "cool coat" and even the teenage daughter liked it. It has a fabric belt around the waist, but since I had left the coat unbuttoned, for maximum sweeping effect, the belt was hanging down the back, itself looking quite cool.

Just before the performance started, I popped to the loo. Now since it's at least three decades since I wore dungarees (overalls here), I was out of practice on the strap strategy. Without putting everyone off their food, I picked up the coat tails, as you do when you sit on a loo, but completely forgot about the long dangling belt - the ends of which went straight down "S" bend. Fortunately I didn't pee on them, but was left with two dripping wet (and now much darker) belt ends. I squeezed as much water out of them with paper towels, blew a bit of air on them until there was a mild burning smell, then had to resort to shoving them in my pockets, thus ruining the whole effect.

That'll learn me.