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It breaks my heart to think just because of all this Apocalypse nonsense, all form of class and elegance, beauty and taste, goes right out the window. And so, I lament the loss of the little things. For instance, as I partook of my afternoon promenade (as I do every Tuesday afternoon, as mother did before me, and my grandmother before her) , I noticed a young lady not one block from my home wearing sandals with stockings. Open-toed sandals with stockings! I never! As if that weren’t enough of a faux pas, I regret to inform you the stockings themselves were almost certainly of the dime-store variety, their hue a vulgar shade of taupe. I know in these trying times, with the zombies and the mutants and the roving Mad Max-style motorcycle gangs, such a breech in good taste is hardly worth a second thought--- and yet, I was awake all night thinking about those toes encased like little sausages under a gaudy sheen. If we allow the young ladies of this country (however fractured at the moment by rampant earthquakes, turf wars, and forbidden zones) to parade around with open-toed shoes and stockings, what’s next?
We simply must cling to our traditions of refinement and I, for one, am doing my part. When a nice young man offered to carry my bag home from the market (my friends and I habitually refer to the abandoned lots and former dumps where we scrounge for food as “markets” ), I not only expressed my gratitude in person, I also copied out a lovely thank you note on my monogrammed stationary. Unfortunately, I was unable to deliver the note due to the young man’s sudden disappearance (he was either carried off by a flash flood or eaten by one of those nuclear alligators), but it’s the thought that counts.
Additionally, I have begun to horde and embroider small scraps of cloth to be used as the requisite linens at my annual Winter Tea. A few acquaintances have employed paper napkins (and plastic cups!) at their summer soirees, but my closest friends and I have agreed in the name of tradition to do as our proud Southern ancestors have done for generations: we will go to absurd lengths to preserve the appearance of wealth and gentility. And so I continue to stitch by candle light and guard my grandmother’s crystal punch bowl (the only piece of family crystal not to shatter when that giant asteroid disrupted the Earth’s gravitational pull) with my grandfather’s equally-precious antique silver musket. I have, as of yet, refrained from yanking down my drapes to forge a ball gown--- but I would never rule out the possibility (although most of my window dressings have been singed by acid rain and the occasional well-aimed grenade).
Make no mistake, these are times of great upheaval and change. But I implore all modern girls attempting to navigate this often confusing, sometimes exhilarating post-apocalyptic world not to relinquish all brand of taste, class, and elegance. If you do devolve into a sandal-and-stockings-wearing-unmannered-uncouth-Yankee-loving philistine, don’t be surprised when your social calendar remains as vacant as your gaze and the country club (we plan to start reseeding the greens as soon as all those quarantined super-flu victims near the fourteenth hole can be relocated) ignores your application.
Until next time, remember, tomorrow is another day…maybe.
End of Daisy
