The accidental glow up of a well-beyond middle-aged man

It seems that after years of struggling in vain to help me be less of a dork, my wife and children have finally given up on me. There was a time when I would not be allowed to leave the socially insulated confines of my home — a place where a man can safely wander about pondering the whereabouts of his missing reading glasses with one pair hanging from his collar and a second pair perched atop the brim of his ball cap — without a quick fashion-and-function check from a caring family member.

The practice of “scanning Dad for fashion faux pas” seemed to reach its zenith when my kids were in high school and I was likely to show up at a sporting event, band concert or school play. No one wants to be known as the progeny of a guy who wears tube socks with sandals or shows up to an event with a thrift store pop tag dangling off his elbow. Even though I would invariably respond to all such critiques with curmudgeonly ire, I was secretly thankful for my family’s efforts to spare me from larger-scale embarrassments.

At some point the hand-holding stopped. I’ve since been largely left to dress myself and walk the world at my own fashion peril. Perhaps they’ve all grown weary of looking out for me, or even worse, they may now be taking perverse pleasure in watching me fail at fashion. I offer the following anecdote so you can draw your own conclusion.

One recent morning, as I hurried toward the door for my morning ride to work, I stopped to dig around in the kitchen junk drawer for a tube of lip balm. I hit pay dirt with a stick of cherry-flavored ChapStick. I quickly swabbed my chapped chops with the wax and shoved the stick in my pocket. Almost as an afterthought, I asked my daughter Sylvia, seated at the breakfast table, whether the bright-red balm had gone on clear or colored my lips.

“Oh, you’re fine,” she’d answered as I dashed out the door. In retrospect I don’t recall her even looking up during our exchange.

I traveled my small section of the universe for the next six days, dosing my kisser with the cherry-flavored lip elixir at every turn, confident each application was entirely transparent. Then came the weekend when I was about to give a talk at a local house of worship. Moments before stepping to the podium, I whipped out my lip balm and glossed up in front of my wife, who was seated in the front row.

I caught her doing a visible double-take.

“Wait, oh no,” I said. “You can’t see this stuff on my lips, can you?”

“Um, well, no,” Kristin stammered, trying to ward off my full-fledged panic. “I mean, not really. It’s not like ‘Marilyn Monroe’ red or anything like that.”

“No, no, no. I’ve been plastering my smackers with this stuff all week,” I exclaimed as I dashed off to the restroom.

“It just looks healthy,” Kristin shouted over my shoulder in an effort to calm me as I fled the scene.

In the restroom a paper towel revealed the whole ruby-lipped truth. I may need to hire a fashion team.

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.