Presentation Skills

Quite often on the way in from late afternoon rides, I stop at the local Subway for my regular chicken-on-Italian-herb-and-cheese sandwich. On this evening, there was a young girl enjoying dinner with her mom. As I waited for my sandwich to come out of the toaster, the girl glanced at me and said to her mother, "Look. That man has on TIGHTS!" For the record, I was in my shorts, it being warm enough to dispense with cool weather clothing. But, still, you could see where she was coming from. Interestingly, her mother was horrified. She quickly responded by telling her daughter that, no, they weren't tights. They were biking shorts. I'm sure that cleared things up. Then, she looked at me and with every ounce of sincerity she could muster, she said, "I'm sorry. She's only two." You know, as if she thought I was somehow offended. Which I wasn't. I told the young girl that, yes, they were pretty much like tights and were very good for bicycle riding.

It reminded me that if you are going to dress as I do when riding, you need to be pretty comfortable with your masculinity, what with the tights and gaudy jerseys and short socks. There's a fine line…

Today's encounter brought to mind another incident that happened on our Alaskan cruise several years ago. Early one morning I was enjoying coffee on one of the upper decks while making a sketch in my journal. A couple walked by and the wife said to her husband, "See. HE'S keeping a diary." As they went by, I heard him reply, "It's not a diary. It's a ship's log." Yes. That one.

So, it's all in the presentation, you see.