Oh my gosh, I love this:
Dear PB – Please comment on the woman clergy person who shows up at the Interfaith Thanksgiving Service wearing her classic suit jacket and… her slip. She forgot to put on her skirt before putting on her winter coat and walking five blocks to the church where the service was held, hanging up said coat on the coat rack at the entrance, and walking down the center aisle of the church to her seat in the second row. After sitting down, she noticed that her slip was showing ALL THE WAY UP TO HER WAIST, so she walked back up the center aisle and phoned her husband, who exclaimed “Jesus!” and then brought over the skirt.
I think it’s unlikely that a male clergy person would forget to put on his pants for the Interfaith Thanksgiving Service or any other occasion. What is going on?
Dearest Anonymous,
The only reason clergymen mostly don’t forget their pants is that a breeze hits their legs as soon as they walk out the door and they have the epiphany that you had while in the church: “DANG, I FORGOT TO COVER MY TUSHIE!” You were wearing a slip, which feels like a skirt. This is why PeaceBang always tries to check herself in a full-length mirror before leaving the house. Because between the phone calls, the counseling, the meetings, the study, the writing, the praying, the crises, the three unexpected funerals in two weeks, the laundry, the cooking, the gardening and house cleaning, the family and friends and the manicures there is occasionally something that gets left undone.
In this case, it was you putting on your skirt.
Remember the words of the prayer, “God forgive for those things we have done that we should not have, and for those things we have not done that we should have.” Like putting on a skirt.
What a riot!!
And let me share my own recent blooper: just last night I arrived at the home of parishioner’s comfortably dressed for a conversation and dinner, but clad much more casually than I had intended: I was still wearing my bootie-style bedroom slippers.
Thanks for sharing! Hopefully now others will come forward with their own confessions!
This isn’t minsterial but reminds me of a story I heard about my husband’s co-worker. She was dressed for an important presentation in a black suit with matching black pumps. The pumps were unfortunately from two different pairs of shoes, each with a different heel height.
Love the visual that comes to mind with that one!
Does forgetting to take your clothes off before you get in the bath count? Not all of them, which is good – but more than once which is less good! I’ve done the out-of-the-door-in-my-slippers thing too. And once, the standing-on-the-doorstep-naked thing, but I was yelling at a tom-cat that had come in the house to torment my kitties, so that probably doesn’t count, does it?
Anyway, I shall continue to claim that I was really distracted by the burdens of ministry, rather than simply doo-lally.
A friend working in chaplaincy went to an important meeting with a very senior member of the secular staff at her place looking very smart and fabulous right down to the blue and brown shoes – one blue and one brown! I bet they were both amazing though, she has great taste in shoes. And her workload gives her a real excuse for distraction.
Anne
Oooh, the slip incident is a wincer! Time for a vacation, I think. My favorite “Oh, pooh, I did it again” moment is when I realize that I have the dickie or janie on, but . . . no clerical collar. Yes, I have spares at the office, but I’m not usually on my way to the office when I get that particularly annoying reminder of the perpetually overwhelmed and distracted nature of ministerial life.
Almost 30 years ago a similar thing happened to one of my friends. As a mother of 4 young children she was very busy gettting the children ready for Church. She even found time to iron her skire. What she forgot was to put it on. fortunately her husband drove home and retrieved it. What overly busy lives we lead at times. Adam and Eve never had this probelm.
So bust that I didn’t have time to review my spelling and punctuation! Skirt instead of skire and F on fortunately.
That must be why my mother told me I must never wear a skirt without a slip!
These are less fashion bloopers than incipient dementia, though in my case it set in around 30. I have walked out of my house with briefcase over shoulder, car keys in hand, and slippers on feet, but did catch myself in time to run back and get some shoes. (I think it’s from the same psychological cause as feeling like you have a skirt on because you put on your slip; my feet are shod, so I must have shoes on.) I have also gone half a work day before realizing that the reason I felt so odd was that I had odd shoes on. They were the same color in the dark . . .
A good friend of mine was once complemented late morning by a workmate on how good she looked, but also how brave the workmate found the long sweater over thick tights look (this was the early 90s). Yup, she’d forgotten her trousers (pants) !
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve accidentally walked out of the house without a bra on… It was worst the time that a nurse in the hospital I was visiting in said, “Hon, it appears to me that you’ve got a Chilly Nip situation, you may want to put your coat back on.” Yikes!
I once discovered late in the work day that my skirt was on backwards. I don’t know if it slowly inched its way around, or if I put it on backwards and it stayed that way. I’ve also gone to work with two different shoes — same style, different color.
Still…nothing to compare with showing up for worship in a slip. I love this story!
There was one time when I was breastfeeding my youngest that I accidentally left my breast hanging out. I just didn’t notice as I was talking that the baby had been done for awhile. While I wasn’t working there at the time, I later got a job with them and I still wonder if the woman I was talking with remembers me from that. At the time she just nicely said, “Oh, its so nice that you are breastfeeding him,” which caused me to look down and realize the error. [NO WAY! LOL!! – PB]
That’s a great story. I think it’s understandably do-able. I tend to walk around my house partially dressed. When I walk out the front door I always take a second look and make sure I have all my clothes on 🙂