Can You Teach an Old Dog?

For all my life I have been a night gown wearing girl. As far as I can remember I have never worn Pajamas. When I was a toddler I probably wore zip up footy sleepers as we lived in Dayton, Ohio and it was cold, but from the time I can remember no PJ’s for me. I have a thing about sleeping in pants.

At boarding school I was an exclusive Lanz Night gown wearer. It was incredibly unoriginal. One night the fire alarm went off and my whole, poorly named for a girls school dorm, beaver brook, ended up outside in our nightwear. Every single girl had on the same Lanz nightgown in every kind of color.

The worst Lanz Night gown I ever had was a navy blue one. My algebra teacher, Mrs. Elmore, kept looking at my hands and asking me if I was feeling OK because she swore my hands were blue and turning bluer. Despite feeling fine I was sent to the health center where our nurse, Germ, short for Mrs. Germano, declared me fine. The next day Mrs. Elmore asked the whole class if my hands were bluer and they all said yes, back to the health center. This went on for a week. I was worried I was a real life Violet Beauregard. Germ tested me for many things and none came back positive.

No other part of me was blue, just the backs of my hands. I washed them over and over again, but they remained blue. So Germ had me come and sleep in the health center one night to see if she could figure out what was wrong with me. I brought my navy night gown. I went to bed early as there was nothing else to do in the health center and after just a while Germ woke me up. She had come in and seen me sleeping with my hand clasped together between my knees in a curled up fetal position. She took me in the examining room and soaked a cotten ball with rubbing alcohol and rubbed the back of my blue hand. The cotton ball turned blue and Germ was able to make a little less blue line in my hand where she scrubbed. Turns out the dye in my nightgown was coming off on the hands, but no where else because the inside of the fabric was white, not blue.

That still did not stop me from wearing nightgowns. In Maine I had a new nightgown with annoying sleeves so I ended up not sleeping in it. Then I thought, maybe I should try PJ’s. A company I like was selling their summer Pj’s for half price so I thought I didn’t have much to lose. They arrived today and I love the way they look. We shall see if I will be able to sleep in them since I am apparently a very finicky sleeper according to Russ. He can sleep with noise, light, the worst scratchy sheets and a cement block as a pillow. I have to have it dark, silent, clean smooth sheets and just the right combinations of pillows. If I am a mess tomorrow I am going to blame it on the PJ’s.