Pajama Misery

I wear embarrassing things to bed.

Year after year, I plead with my mother, begging her not to buy me clothing. I like muted colors (and by muted, I mean black or white). She prefers looking like a bag of Skittles. Nevertheless, come Hanukkah, there is always the tell-tale rectangular box, the contents of which I know I am bound to despise. Finally, after years of her calling me an "ungrateful bitch" for disliking the sweaters she bought me, she finally gave up...and moved on to pajama pants. I don't know where she finds these pants, but I am running out of places to put all of these "gifts." Three years ago, it was a flannel nightie. I asked her if the nightie also came with a colostomy bag. Two years ago, she bought me a matching top-and-bottom set decorated in a Southwestern motif. There were cacti and dogs wearing bandanas all over the turquoise pants. I looked like an overgrown 8 year-old. Last year was my favorite. I tore open my gift to find a pair of pants decorated with Grumpy the Dwarf and blueberry gumballs. What? Since when do Grumpy and gumballs go together? "I thought they suited you," my mom said. "You know, since you are so mean in the mornings."

This brings me to 5:30 a.m. today. The fire alarm in my building went off, and protocol mandates that we evacuate the building (well, that and I don't really want to be burned alive). I was, of course, fast asleep, dreaming about inventing calorie-free cheesecake. Waking up to the alarm, I jumped out of bed and discovered two problems: I was wearing a pair of tiny shorts with bright pink poodles on the butt (another "gift" from Mom), and the top to the Southwestern ensemble. Realizing that I was not particularly keen on hauling outside dressed in this manner, I quickly changed clothes. Off came the poodles and the howling dogs. On came the brown and yellow pants, green and red shirt, and orange and blue jacket. Throw my retainers and super-cool (super-thick) glasses into the mix, and I was ready to roll. It wasn't until I was outside that I realized that should the building actually go up in flames, I would be stuck looking like a parrot, while the rest of my clothes were reduced to ash. Such poor wardrobe choices. My amazing, technicolor, dream outfit was just as mortifying as the dog get-up, defeating the entire purpose behind changing and stalling my escape from the building that was potentially en fuego. My plan backfired, and I was left to stand in shame in a crowd of my peers.

I suppose things could have been worse. I could have been wearing the Grumpy gumball pants.

**UPDATE**

Taken from an email from Mom sent at 11:04 p.m.-

"Dear Ariella, What do you want for Hanukkah this year? Please tell me so you don't wind up with the default gift=sweaters. Need new underwear? Let me know. Love, Mom"