Elizabeth Ann
05-21-2007, 03:51 PM
I believe I have this forum to thank for keeping me out of trouble last week, but then again, it contributed to getting me into trouble in the first place!
I was far behind in the spring outfitting of our sailboat. The boat is over 50 miles from home, and my wife suggested that I just go for a couple of days and sleep on the boat. A very practical suggestion, and when I loaded up all the tools, and materials, I also added a bag with some of my favorite dress up clothes.
This would be only the third time I have ventured out of the house dressed, and my first time to try makeup. At sundown, I quit work and went over to the nice individual shower/toilet rooms at the marina and took my time showering, careful close shave and experimentation with the makeup.
Now on the web, the before and after pictures on makeup web sites are amazing. So, I was fully expecting that this would turn an overweight 56 year old man with too much time in the sun into a sexy babe. However, no matter what I did with the foundation, eye shadow, mascara and lipstick, it didn’t seem to work. So I finally got dressed nice but conservative flowered dress, long hair wig, and three inch heels.
I know passing is “problematic.” I’m 6’3” and 250 pounds. I have an indoors profession but have spent a lot of time outside (I would live on a sailboat if I could afford it). Moreover, I have been told many times I have a passing resemblance to Harrison Ford, which I think really means that we share those deep creases that run from nose to the corners of the mouth. So, I stand there in the dressing room knowing that I look like an old, fat, Harrison Ford in a dress.
No matter, I know from this forum that I can still do this. By now, it is after 9:30 and I get in the car and head for Annapolis. I stop at a drive through hamburger joint. Okay. I pull up to a bank ATM, get out and walk to it. Still okay. I drive to downtown Annapolis, a small town with a nice boat basin in the center. It’s a lively place, and even at 11 p.m. there are people about. It is a nice stroll around the basin looking at the boats, and then once up and down Main St. window shopping. A few people stare, and a couple of men say hello as they pass, which leads me to conclude that they have been drinking all night.
Annapolis has free wireless wifi downtown, so I get my laptop out of the car and sit on a bench by the basin to check emails and surf a bit. It is a pleasant and mellow evening, and about 1 a.m. I decide to head back to the boat.
Here is where the experience starts to feel like a Greek tragedy where the Gods punish the hero for his hubris. I’m thirsty, and I stop at one of those gas station/convenience stores. At first, I stand outside and get gas with a credit card. I want to get something to drink, but I am nervous enough about going in to wait for other customers to clear out. After dawdling by the gas pump, I pull up to the store but sit in the car combing my hair. A grandmother, mother, and daughter are sitting in their van eating sandwiches. Eventually another customer leaves the store and the van leaves, but two burley men go in.
I am waiting for the men to leave when a police car pulls up and the officer walks directly to my car and motions to roll down the window. Instantly visions of ruin flash before me: career over, family alienated, abandoned by friends and impoverished. But I have been reading this forum and repeat to myself that I am not breaking any law. I roll down the window.
“Sir, were you in an altercation with a van this evening?” The expression on my face must have told him that I had no clue as to what he was talking about. After another officer from another car checks my license and car registration (Sir, could I see your . . .), he comes back and explains that the van with three women had called the police. They had read me from just the shoulders up and 30 feet away.
The police were polite about it: “Sir, they must have been taken aback by your style of dress” and “okay sir, you are free to go.” But the whole thing left me very disturbed. I’m pretty confident of both my abilities and my moral compass, and I felt neither fear or shame. I was irritated at being read so easily, but mostly what I felt, sitting there as the police officers spoke matter-of-factly to this man in a dress, was foolish and silly. My mood was so bad that not even the sailboat lifted it the next day.
I was far behind in the spring outfitting of our sailboat. The boat is over 50 miles from home, and my wife suggested that I just go for a couple of days and sleep on the boat. A very practical suggestion, and when I loaded up all the tools, and materials, I also added a bag with some of my favorite dress up clothes.
This would be only the third time I have ventured out of the house dressed, and my first time to try makeup. At sundown, I quit work and went over to the nice individual shower/toilet rooms at the marina and took my time showering, careful close shave and experimentation with the makeup.
Now on the web, the before and after pictures on makeup web sites are amazing. So, I was fully expecting that this would turn an overweight 56 year old man with too much time in the sun into a sexy babe. However, no matter what I did with the foundation, eye shadow, mascara and lipstick, it didn’t seem to work. So I finally got dressed nice but conservative flowered dress, long hair wig, and three inch heels.
I know passing is “problematic.” I’m 6’3” and 250 pounds. I have an indoors profession but have spent a lot of time outside (I would live on a sailboat if I could afford it). Moreover, I have been told many times I have a passing resemblance to Harrison Ford, which I think really means that we share those deep creases that run from nose to the corners of the mouth. So, I stand there in the dressing room knowing that I look like an old, fat, Harrison Ford in a dress.
No matter, I know from this forum that I can still do this. By now, it is after 9:30 and I get in the car and head for Annapolis. I stop at a drive through hamburger joint. Okay. I pull up to a bank ATM, get out and walk to it. Still okay. I drive to downtown Annapolis, a small town with a nice boat basin in the center. It’s a lively place, and even at 11 p.m. there are people about. It is a nice stroll around the basin looking at the boats, and then once up and down Main St. window shopping. A few people stare, and a couple of men say hello as they pass, which leads me to conclude that they have been drinking all night.
Annapolis has free wireless wifi downtown, so I get my laptop out of the car and sit on a bench by the basin to check emails and surf a bit. It is a pleasant and mellow evening, and about 1 a.m. I decide to head back to the boat.
Here is where the experience starts to feel like a Greek tragedy where the Gods punish the hero for his hubris. I’m thirsty, and I stop at one of those gas station/convenience stores. At first, I stand outside and get gas with a credit card. I want to get something to drink, but I am nervous enough about going in to wait for other customers to clear out. After dawdling by the gas pump, I pull up to the store but sit in the car combing my hair. A grandmother, mother, and daughter are sitting in their van eating sandwiches. Eventually another customer leaves the store and the van leaves, but two burley men go in.
I am waiting for the men to leave when a police car pulls up and the officer walks directly to my car and motions to roll down the window. Instantly visions of ruin flash before me: career over, family alienated, abandoned by friends and impoverished. But I have been reading this forum and repeat to myself that I am not breaking any law. I roll down the window.
“Sir, were you in an altercation with a van this evening?” The expression on my face must have told him that I had no clue as to what he was talking about. After another officer from another car checks my license and car registration (Sir, could I see your . . .), he comes back and explains that the van with three women had called the police. They had read me from just the shoulders up and 30 feet away.
The police were polite about it: “Sir, they must have been taken aback by your style of dress” and “okay sir, you are free to go.” But the whole thing left me very disturbed. I’m pretty confident of both my abilities and my moral compass, and I felt neither fear or shame. I was irritated at being read so easily, but mostly what I felt, sitting there as the police officers spoke matter-of-factly to this man in a dress, was foolish and silly. My mood was so bad that not even the sailboat lifted it the next day.