Scrambled eggs and ketchup

I never wore jeans to work until this year. That’s because a former bureau chief, a woman I was/am also friends with, once said women have to do more to earn respect at work than men do, and while people overlook men dressed in jeans, women in jeans look sloppy. So I never wore jeans until this year, when I finally threw off the shackles.

These kinds of statements can affect you more than you think. Another well-dressed friend once said to me, “What is the thing with black and brown? Black doesn’t GO with brown.” And ever since then I’ve thought, wow, black doesn’t go with brown? And I experience an inner questioning every time I pair black with brown, which I like to do.

I also had a German boyfriend once who said “grün und blau trägt die Sau,” which means the female pig wears green with blue. He said this on a day when I was wearing green and blue. I’d often wear green and blue; I figured they went well together. But now I was told they were ultimate frump. And the more I thought about it, the more I kind of agreed. (That is an actual German saying, by the way.)

But the worst for me is yellow and red. Yellow and red has always reminded me of scrambled eggs with ketchup, which I hate. As a kid I loved the game Risk, but I couldn’t play if red and yellow were on the same team. This is surely one of the reasons I dislike the German flag. Ugh, who thought that up? In any case, I never wear yellow and red together. Hell, I never wear yellow OR red at all.