Some winter wardrobe choices may seal your fate

Now that we’ve gotten a taste of the presidential debates and the ensuing vice presidential Kabuki theater debate, we can all get back to the real issue facing us - what to wear this winter considering the temperatures are plummeting.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I open the closet to peruse the side for the upcoming season, the only real conclusion I can come to is that I must have left town for the duration, because there is nothing there. Of course it’s also possible I have the wrong house, but I really don’t care what the police report says; that only happened once.

I know it is hard to understand, because you are probably one of those winter people who can find gloves in a box marked “gloves” on the top shelf, categorized by color, on the right-hand side of your closet. It goes without saying you have it cross indexed on a card in a file cabinet in your office also.

Well, some of us can’t even spell accessories, let alone find them. All I can say is that I drove the whole winter last year with my fingertips on the steering wheel! Gloves are like socks; you can always find one, but not the matching other, or even worse, sometimes a finger is missing on them.

Yes there are folks, as Obama would call them, whose hands never get cold, but that’s because they always find the gloves I leave behind. I’ll be driving down the highway and trying to merge when the car behind me will swing around and the driver will make a bad gesture with her fingers and she is wearing my gloves!

When I was young (which was just recently), no matter how cold it was outside, I could get around with no covering on my legs and open-toed, high-heeled shoes. I constantly wore a smart short coat with brass buttons down the front, a cute belt in the back and no insulation or lining. I had a color-coordinated hat and matching glove set. Sure, I was wearing this inside the building; I’m not stupid enough to go outside where my teeth would chatter like those wind-up false teeth your uncle was always leaving on your seat in church as a joke.

But as I got older (which was just last week), the winter coat got longer and the legs disappeared under layers of thick industrial hemp-like fabric. My look could best be described as the couture line from Nanook of the North. My coat has enough insulation to trap enough heat to hatch a nest of bald eagles.

And if I took my hat off, people invariably dropped change into it and wished me luck. Singing “Nearer My God to Thee” would net me enough money to purchase a one-way ticket to Cancun during the prime winter season.

I mention this dilemma of winter fashion choices only because the adult children are watching.

Cold weather means the holidays, and that also means visiting families. Trust me, the slightest indication of you choosing comfort over fashion, and before you know it, a stranger will be saying, “We’ll take good care of her.”

Scrutiny will be fierce. Any stain, any tiny tear, any crooked hem, and it will be time to get in the car and go look at a few places. Now, dads fare much better here.

For some reason, they can look like a cyclone hit them; they can have holes in their sweater, mismatched shoes or even a coat on backward and it’s, well, just dad. Perhaps it’s the only way they’ve known him to dress.

So choose your wardrobe carefully this winter, ladies. You’ll have to try to be dignified yet stylish in those gale winds and plunging temperatures.

Notice I said try, not that you could actually pull this off.