Curse of the Pink Shirt 2

* Today I went to campus to meet my brothers and sister-in-law for lunch. I really didn't think much about what I was wearing--pink shirt with a white skirt because I was going to the temple later.

Shortly after I sat down at a table in the Cougareat, a fiftyish woman walked up to me, "Do you mind if I sit here? I hate to take up a whole table for myself."

I hesitated, thinking of the three people who would be joining me at the four-person table. "Well, I'm waiting for some people, but they won't be here for awhile. So you're welcome to eat here."

So she sat down and ate her lunch. When my brother Adam and his wife, Bonnie, showed up, the woman offered to move to a different table. But I told her she could stay because we preferred to sit further back, and I had only sat at this table near the walkway in order to watch for my family--which is true.

While Adam and Bonnie waited in line for their food, I snagged another table and started reading letters to the editor in the Daily Universe. But after a few minutes, a random girl sat down across from me and started rummaging through her backpack.

"Um, are you just stopping for a second to find something in your bag? Or are you planning to stay?" I asked.

"What?"

"I'm kind of waiting for three other people, so if you're planning to stay and eat . . ."

She left.

After that incident, I put my bag up on the table to make it look more occupied. Then I pulled out my water bottle and some food and spread everything out on the table, so that no one would mistake my saved seats for available ones.

The Cougareat was not that crowded today, but something about the pink shirt makes people think it's a good idea to sit by me.

(And when I went to the temple, still wearing the pink, two different older gentlemen went out of their way to greet me. Not bad, but still a little weird.)

I really have to be more careful about my wardrobe choices. *

Curse of the Pink Shirt

Many years ago (like back in the Southridge days), I had favorite pink, polyester shirt that I wore frequently. And although I really loved the shirt, I noticed that weird things happened when I wore pink, as opposed to other colors. More people talked to me--classmates, random strangers--and when I walked through the quad and the Wilk, I was targeted more by the people handing out flyers and promoting . . . stuff. The difference between the number of flyers I received on pink shirt days versus other color days was disturbing. And I concluded that something about the pink shirt made me seem more approachable--not always my goal in life.

Fast forward to today:

I went to the Cougareat to finish my reading assignment for my next class. I chose the Cougareat because I wanted to be able sit at an actual table and eat while I studied--which isn't possible in most campus study areas. However, since it was 11:00 on Thursday (opposite the Tuesday devotional), the Cougareat was particularly busy. Hoping for some level of seclusion, I chose a small table against the wall on the furthest end of the seating area.

Twenty minutes into to my reading, a guy I've never seen before, asked if he could sit at my table. Of course, I was fine with that. I could see the tables were pretty well full, and I don't care if someone else wants to quietly eat their sandwich at the same table as me.

Unfortanately, this particular person did not eat his sandwich quietly. He asked me what book I was reading. Then he asked about my field of study. Then, of course, I felt obligated to ask him about his life. I tried to return to my book--Language Universals and Linguistic Typology--several times, but Stan, the senior in manufacturing engineering from Colorado who will be working in Seattle for Boeing when he graduates in December, just kept the conversation going. Don't get me wrong, he was a very nice person, and we could probably be friends, but I really needed to finish my reading assignment for my next class.

When I got to class, I was explaining to my classmates why I didn't finish the reading, and I glanced down and realized I was wearing a pink shirt--not the bright polyester one from before, obviously, this one is cotton, baby pink. But pink, nonetheless. And pink is the cursed color when you don't want to make friends. Pink is approachable.

So next time I know I need to study between classes, I will choose my wardrobe more carefully.