It's Official. I Am a Hillbilly.

I swear it is not my fault. Months of unemployment will do this to you. But I drove my daughter to school this morning in my pajamas and a sweater. And sunglasses - so no one could possibly recognize me in my car.

For years, it has driven me insane that my girls sleep till noon or later on any given day off and then don't get dressed until 9:00 p.m. when they want to go out. Or conversely, they would come home from school at 3:00 and having no where to go, would put their pajamas on. My mother had a word for this: Hillbilly. It was the supreme insult (no offense to real hillbillies - if there really are real hillbillies.) But what it meant in my mother's eyes was slothfulness and a lack of social graces and/or acceptability so extreme as to be visible to those around you. The first evidence of Hillbilly? Pajamas in the daytime. (Second evidence? Chomping on a wad of gum with your mouth open.) It was ingrained in my brain and to see my girls actively engage in visible hillbilly-ism was torturous. So I had rules. If the sun is out you cannot be in pajamas. Period.

Well, the sun has been out for hours. I have come home from dropping my daughter off from school. I am sitting on the couch - still with pajamas and sweater. And the only reason I have to get dressed is that I need to be at a friend's at 11:00. Were that she were only blind.

Getting dressed has become a daily obstacle to overcome. I mean, I do it. I just hate it. Looking through a closet of work clothes collecting dust on the shoulders is such a bore. I do not need to get dressed to get on the internet to look for work. I do not need to get dressed to make phone calls. I do not need to get dressed to eat. Or to make the bed. And I don't have to get dressed for Bob. Bob sleeps dressed. (You think I joke - but if he is wearing a polo shirt on Wednesday, it doesn't come off until Thursday morning when he showers - which makes him the biggest Hillbilly of all - in a backward kind of way. But that's Bob so I give up!)

So here's the deal: one MUST get dressed to retain a modicum of self respect. And so the fact that I actually drove in pajamas this morning is a little alarming. I do , in fact remember back in elementary school, I often saw moms in bathrobes and curlers dropping their kids off. And Mrs. Hansen down the street, drove in a penoir and winked at the Principal. But no one does that today. Women drive their kids to school in work out clothes - ready to practice health and fitness before whatever else it is they do that does not include looking for a job because they don't have to.

But I have to. And in talking to other people in similar circumstances I am learning that pajamas seem to have become the uniform of choice for those working at finding work. And this just seems big time wrong since the rule of thumb is: "Dress for Success". Success is not going to find me in my pajamas. Because if it does, it will excuse itself for having made a mistake and walk away without leaving its card. Perhaps I should do what I make Grace do. Lay out my clothes the night before. Because it is dawning on me that a pair of comfy, old flannel jammies that are "pilling" with time are a really easy place for depression to hide and grow.

At least I'm not chomping on gum.