This is my red sleepshirt, but this is not me. Add about a hundred pounds to this woman, and try not to picture her in this same sleepshirt, because that would be pretty much what I look like in it. Your sensibilities would never be the same again, believe me. Ick.

Yesterday, I got busted. Around noon, the doorbell rang, and I had to answer it wearing this sleepshirt. It was the young woman who lives next door, bringing me a Christmas card. I had a package all ready for her, but I couldn’t go get it because then she’d see far too much of me, in this same nightie. I think too highly of her to subject her to a sight like that.

This morning, I got up, showered, and got dressed in actual clothes. I walked over to the neighbor’s house and hung the bag containing their Christmas gifts on the doorknob, and slunk back home. Then I got in the car and drove to the UPS office, and finally mailed all those packages that had been in the back of my car for an inexcusable number of days. The Post Office could not promise delivery this week, but UPS gave me its solemn word that they would all be delivered Thursday or before. I opted for UPS. Sorry, Uncle Sam.

By the way, that picture really is my red nightshirt. I got it at Tar-jhay, and it’s soft and comfy and it came packaged with a twin of a different color, which factual possibility was explained in great chalky detail by my freshman biology teacher, and that is the only biological thing I learned that whole year because he was the football coach and we spent most of each period down on the field while he yelled at the janitors about marking the grass and important things like that.

I recommend the nightshirts highly. They were inexpensive, and I really like them. My old red nightie is so old and horrible, it makes me kind of cringe whenever I take it out of the dryer and find even more holes and worn places that will soon be holes. It’s still my favorite nightshirt, though.

I tend to wear nighties until they pretty much fall apart, just as I tend to carry a purse until it rots off my arm. Too much information, wasn’t it. . . .

I’m on vacation and if I don’t want to wear real clothes, I just won’t, so there.

*Go nuts, Google.