Reshaping my damaged public image

A couple of things have happened lately that are causing me to consider my public image.

Everyone in Cape Girardeau has a public image to consider. If you don't think so, go to Wal-Mart at midnight sometime without makeup. It's shocking the number of people there who will know you and give a rip what you look like.

The first incident was in a video rental store. I was casually searching for something the critics loved, maybe something a little edgy that didn't make it to Cape Girardeau theaters. (The Other Half was looking for something with a lot of farting and gunplay -- the two items which, along with scantily clad females, are movie must-haves for males.)

There it was, the foreign film I'd heard so much about, the critics' darling, wedged between a horror flick and a teen comedy. It was "Y Tu Mama Tambien."

I placed it on the check-out counter. The teen clerk squinted up at me.

"You know this has subtitles, right?" she asked.

Yes, I know it has subtitles, I told her.

She skeptically let me rent it.

Note, she didn't warn me that the film wasn't suitable for children. She didn't warn me that I might be offended by the content. She warned me that I'd have to be able to read to understand it.

The second incident was a few weeks later, when I rushed to buy a frozen pizza for my night-working husband, who'd just come home hungry. As I took a shortcut past the check-out lanes, a cashier shouted after me, "The liquor department is closed!"

Mortified, I grabbed the pizza, paid and trotted out as quickly as my chubby feet would carry me.

So the question is: What is causing these cashiers to believe that I am an illiterate drunkard?

Perhaps I'm presenting myself in a way that causes people to believe I've not finished high school and count a shot glass collection among my favorite possessions.

Frankly, I think it could be the sweatpants.

Five days a week, I happily comply with the Southeast Missourian's official dress code and the unwritten laws of professional attire. That means dress pants or a skirt, a pressed shirt with a collar and a moderate amount of makeup and hair-care products.

But two days a week, I abandon all attempts at personal hygiene and socially acceptable fashion and become who I like to call "Weekend Heidi." Weekend Heidi cares not that she slept in that T-shirt the night before and is now wearing it to the grocery store. Weekend Heidi wears sweatpants for every activity from power walking to toilet cleaning to movie going.

She also gives her facial pores a couple of days off, refusing to clog them with the foundation guaranteed to hide all major flaws through the week. Curling irons and hairspray? Weekend Heidi don't play that.

Another problem that could be confusing these cashiers: I often underestimate my height and hip width. This causes me to hit my head on car frames, cabinets and a variety of other elevated items and bruise my hip bone on all manner of doorways and countertops. To the untrained eye, I appear to be intoxicated.

And finally -- and this is tough to say -- there are my friends. Obviously, I need to start hanging with a better class of people. Sure, there are a few that make me look good, those who wear makeup and ironed shirts even on the weekend. But the rest of them are staggering around in sweatpants like me.

My New Year's resolution is to change these things about myself and then attempt to rent "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." I'll let you know what happens.

Heidi Hall is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.