Ethical quandry...

Say your workplace has a dress code. It's not a stringent dresscode; it mainly consists of the idea that you not look like a schlub that either 1) just rolled out of bed or 2) just rolled out of prison. During the week, I adhere to this dresscode minus a few details - I wear slacks, but they have elastic waists hidden underneath my sweaters. I wear shoes, but they are sometimes of the lace-up-to-go-running variety instead of nice leather or shiny ones. (Who am I kidding. My shoes are never of the "lace-up-to-go-running" variety. They are the "lace-up-so-you-don't-trip-while-strolling-at-a-leisurely-pace" variety.)

During the week, my dress is fine and no one mentions anything to me. But what is the dresscode if you have to work over a weekend? My job is of a nature that only a skeleton staff is in the office on weekends - 5 instead of 50 people. If no one sees you come to work looking like a schlub, did you actually come to work looking like a schlub?

I just got home from work, and I wore jeans, a dirty sweatshirt that I had slept in, and I'm not quite sure when the last time was that I washed my hair. Gross, I know. But off the top of my head, I can think of five things better to do with my time than waste water purely for other people's aesthetic satisfaction: sleep, scrapbook, write, read...okay, four things.

Whenever I get the bug in my drawers to start dating again and try to find "The One (Who Doesn't Exist)", my tolerance for schlubness decreases exponentially. Suddenly, I wear makeup again, I change clothes four times before leaving the house, I meet up with a guy, flirt and act unlike myself, and fall into bed, exhausted. Where is the reedeming quality in this experience? I have created nothing. I have truly experienced nothing. I was not genuinely happy.

Some will say that people should keep themselves "up" for themselves, that it shows personal, I don't know, pride? Care for oneself? Or does it really show care for oneself when you do what makes you happy, what makes you feel true to yourself, regardless of social expectations?

I may be rationalizing my schlubness. I'm sure I am, as a matter of fact. But at least I can sleep at night, knowing that my laziness in personal upkeep is helping the environment.