January 28, 2009

It’s one of my favorite colors. Truly. If I count the number of gray shirts hanging in my closet, there would be at least 20. There are lots of brown and green and black tops, too, but they are way outnumbered by gray. I’ve thought about actually doing the counting, but it unnerves me a little. Am I that dull, that I wear, almost exclusively, the colors of earth and dirt?

I stood in front of my closet yesterday and caught a glimpse of the almost-pepto-pink sweater hiding in there. What momentary lapse of reason inspired me to buy it? It was late last spring when that sweater came into my life. It was cute. It spoke to me, beckoned to me, and it was on sale. But perhaps if I had listened a little more carefully, I would have realized its message was a big fat lie. I wore it once. No one said “nice sweater, K.C.” And it’s not because they didn’t notice I was wearing something new. No one could miss that sweater. I looked like a giant stick of wet bubble gum.

Still, I held on to it. For months it’s been hanging in the recesses of that closet, trying not to be noticed. Tough luck; now it’s on my dresser, awaiting its uncertain fate. Anybody want a pink tunic style sweater, worn and washed only once? It’s a Junior’s size large.

The website dictionary.com defines gray with a series of D words: dark, dismal, dull, and dreary. When the skies are gray, I’d have to agree. But put me in a store full of sweaters, and inevitably I go for the gray. They draw me in with their mysteries. See, you never know what colors pooled together in the dye puddle to make gray. Somewhere in the spectrum between black and white, there is gray. With pink you know it’s just watered down red. Purple, take a little red, mix it with blue and that’s that. But myriad shades might have mingled to make gray.

I think I’m waxing poetic to justify all those gray clothes. And I just bought a new one last weekend. I’m saving it for a Steelers party on Saturday. Gray is close to black and gold, right?

There’s something about gray that implies money to me. Maybe there’s a little green in that dye puddle.

Another great thing about gray is that it also is acceptable to spell it grey. That kind of diversity comes in no other color! To say pank instead of pink is just plain derogatory.

Does anyone else love gray as much as I?

And does anyone want that pank sweater? Seriously.