My mind wanders . . .

I am not a fashion plate.

I doubt I am even a fashion saucer.

But when I returned from the morning sweat fest at the gym, I was starting the laundry only to discover the t-shirt I had worn to the gym has a hole in it. . . in an embarrassing location.

Okay.

I have been embarrassed before by much worse than a hole. However, this was strategically located as to show the dingy ripped area of my bra. And possibly the dingy skin underneath.

Now, before this becomes a moment for the fashionistas of the world to descend upon me like locusts, let it just be said that I had nice clothing - once. Sometimes, in the rush to be everything for everybody, the clothes closet begins to resemble not so much an array of what you would like to represent as your personal tastes and styles, but instead becomes a horrible refugee camp for those items deemed 'too bad' to send to the charity store.

It isn't that they are worth keeping, but you are simply too embarrassed to let other people see them. There is always the off chance that someone will pick it up and immediately identify it as having belonged to YOU! It must be some form of grungy radar.

Perhaps this is where the old country custom of braiding rag rugs came into being. Those items deemed no longer public, private or any kind of attire would be unceremoniously ripped into long strips to be skillfully braided into the nicely shaped oval rugs or sturdy square rugs that graced many a Southern home before Wal-Mart sold rubber backed Berber from occupied China.

No one would give a second thought to walking on something that was prestained since their feet would simply add to the color of the multihued canvas that now graced the floor instead of a wall.

Of course, a small problem rears its ugly head. I lack sufficient knowledge to turn rags into anything but dirty rags. While that is fine when cars need to be cleaned, I am quite sure no one wants a rug the color of road grime and paste wax to adorn their floor.

I also cannot make baskets, use a spear to bring home a nice fish dinner or even carve useful items out of bones. Somehow my education has been lacking.

While I am seldom asked to do any of the above, there is a primitive part of me that fervently believes that should I be suddenly called upon to hunt in the wilds with only a sharpened stick and my intellect in order to feed my waifish and starving family, that I would return with a mastodon or some other suitable beast for dinner and be able to somehow dry the leftovers for a nice treat the next day. Sort of that Darwinian survival of the fittest thingy.

The fact that genetic predisposition doesn't include an instruction manual on just how you should stalk a mastodon is not important. What is important is that the skill, the knowledge and the ability will just suddenly descend.

Yeah, right.

In the meantime, lacking all other skills of a hunter gatherer, I can dial a phone and I do know the number for the pizza place and they deliver.

Maybe that will be enough for today. I have to stop and go hunt for my mind. It has taken off without me.

Just what does one do with freeze dried mastodon?