On the Catwalk

Whenever Tiffany's mom Patty comes to visit, she brings a suitcase full of surprises--mostly things she's picked up for us on her trips to see family in Peru and China. As soon as she arrives, she spills the contents on the floor of our living room: fried corn snacks, Peruvian seasonings, and some of whatever clothes and shoes are in fashion.

Usually Tiffany and I don't bother trying to keep up with the latest trends (example: neither of us own a pair of skinny jeans). I can pretty readily admit that I'm out of the loop, but I have to be careful calling my very own girlfriend unhip. Long before Tiffany and I started dating, she had a brief career in the fashion world in a buyers' program for a major department store. When she left the job, which made her miserable, another friend and I joked that we wondered how she'd lasted so long since...

well, I believe our words were:

"You have no sense of style."

Tiffany didn't speak to us for a couple of hours after that.

Truthfully, Tiffany and I do have a sense of style. It just has no connection to the passage of time. For instance, in most of the pictures on our wall, we are wearing one or two of the "nice" outfits we each own even though the pictures span our six year relationship.

Anyway, when Patty came to visit this weekend, her suitcase was full of tights, long clingy tank tops and flowy shirts. In theory, I knew all of these things went together.

"Everyone is wearing this," Patty explained, tossing the items to us one by one.

I gave Tiffany a dubious look. But, when she tried it all on, the strangest thing happened:

She was fashionable.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she frowned.

"You look... it's so weird because you look like you know what you're doing!" I exclaimed.

She generously let that comment pass.

Inspired by Tiffany's experience, I tried on the clothes myself.

And that's when I realized:

Tiffany has style.

I don't.