:: The Wendy House ::

In John Lewis’ this chap demonstrates a shoulder bag,  hat and khaki cargo pants, he has almost all the necessaries to be a real dude.

These two people, he with a big camera and pants des cargo con khaki,  her with hotpants and wobbly thighs, whirred passed the Madrid cafe where I was peacefully soaking up the view and the vino. 

I suspect I would fall-off and crash such a contraption that clearly needs advanced balancing skills.  Why aren’t they wearing helmets?  Such wild wrecklessness on whirring wheely thingys.

I jumped right in and fell-over on my first day in Madrid. 

Nice scrape there on my knee… …and what colour and style are those pants I’m wearing….a shade of khaki…a version of cargo….have I succumbed to the camoflauge of the masses? 

Oh fickle me and my grazed knee. 

We are sat at the beautiful Madrid airport watching the rain……

the RAIN  in SPAIN waiting for my PLANE

The Spanish locals are wearing the pants of the cargo khaki.  They are internationale.  They are slightly smaller than the US equivalent.  They look like they fit the wearer.   They are all over the place here in Madrid.  Should I be scared or simply make sure I extend my wardrobe to contain the now essential khaki pants des cargo?

thirty-fifth post in a Wednesday series detailing couture reasions ”why wendy’s single”.

Reason # 35: the wrong trousers

  Apparantly I need to secure some boyfriend trousers before I can achieve a boyfriend. 

The trousers appear to be of a similar kind of that worn by many local USA males;  the pants of the cargo khaki.  Now that is actually rather scarey.

 I have developed an allergy to these cargo pants of the khaki.  I may have to seek out some form of therapy so that I can,  with an absence of bile or attitude, pick-up and embrace the pants of the cargo khaki.

A local celebration of specialness involved walking around in khaki cargo pants demonstrating evidence of fertility (children) herded on bicycles.  At least,  that’s what it looked like to me.  Me = Furriner.

I was baffled by the city parade today.  “What are we celebrating?” No-one seemed to know.  “It’s Derby Days“,  “What’s that?”.  The sheer abundance of khaki cargo pants was overwhelming.  Is there a conspiracy to reduce visual diversity?  Even women appear to wear variations on the theme.  In this city the dress trends appear to conspire to dampen evidence of diversity. 

khaki cargo pants & t-shirts

Wendy: dress in clothes your mother would think you look good in. Casual with a hint of smart because you are representing the company to these customers.

male colleague: Khaki’s and logo’d t-shirt Ok?

Wendy: a popular choice!

No pedestrian crossing’s or sidewalks in this district.  Everyone drives.  I just wanted to pick up some supplies from a store near my hotel without getting into the car.  A low slung car pulled up as I looked for a gap in traffic to cross the road

shiny black man:  wanna ride?  white-toothy-grin

Wendy “thanks,  but no thanks” yellow-toothy-grin

He pulled away.  A helpful native?  A guy with a thing about skinny older white chicks?  Someone surrupticiously working out whether I was a street walker? A budding serial killer?  I’ll never know.

Outside the deserted suburbian strip mall Hotel a group of men loiter, smoking.  No-one is white.  The Hotel provides free ’beer’ (lager) to residents between 4 and 5pm.  This fills the lobby with the elegantly labelled ’business men’.  The mature manageress proudly referred to the hotel’s 20yrs history and recent renovations to suit it’s business clientelle.  It certainly meets basic needs.  It is in some taste of finery that doesn’t permeate my senses.  It feels bland.  Only the people make it special.  She complimented me on my ‘cute accent’.   I returned the compliment.  Her drawl is kind to the listener and speaker.  No hurry,  think before you speak,  its ok to ponder. Even the lifts are slow. I like it.  She giggled as if no-one had ever told her she sounded cute.  Her cell phone rang,  she left…

In the foyer an attractive 44yr old black man talked about his business.  He’s training chef’s across the east coast.  He pondered on how he came to this point in his life.  An easily shared story of college and job changes. He has a french speaking friend from the Ivory coast who now owns a cafe somewhere in Paris.  He commented that I looked European.  I giggled.  Can he not hear my accent? Is this a subtle form of politeness?  He asked if I can spot Americans.  I looked at his faded,  XL t-shirt and khaki cut-off cargo pants while pondering telling the truth. I told the truth without citing khaki cargo pants or t-shirts.  Then my colleague arrived wearing khaki cargo pants and a t-shirt and we left to meet 3 more American people,  all of whom wore khaki cargo pants and t-shirts.