The Idiot Who Didn't Pack Pants

I live where it is hot. It's not the hottest place I've ever lived, but it is still hot. One summer I flew to San Francisco. To do this I wore a T-shirt, shorts, and slide on shoes.

The plane ride was fine, other than I somehow ended up in a seating block of extended families with screaming, constantly pooping babies. When the captain announced we were approaching for our final descent, I didn't press my face to the window plastic, because gross, but I did turn my attention to the land below us.

We flew over the scrubby hills that separate the Bay Area from the rest of the continent, and I wondered how many square yards of poison oak were below me. The hills were that blasted golden color that made me hot thinking about them, then I lifted my gaze Westward, and I saw the approaching marine layer.

Soon the nuked, dry hills were gone, and the air turned the color of a metallic blue Honda CRV (you know the color), and within moments, I realized, shorts might have been a bad idea.

We landed, deplaned, and I went outside to get picked up and it was real cold. I called my friend, L, who was coming to pick me up and asked if she was near, or if I could go inside.

"You wore shorts? What's wrong with you?" she asked.

"I didn't even bring pants."

"Who even are you?" she said.

"It was hot where I was?" I tried.

I went back inside the airport. I dug in my bag and produced a University of California sweatshirt. I put it on and called my husband.

"I think I blend in now," I told him. "I totally look local, in my UC hoodie."

"Except that you are in shorts," my husband said. "Do you not even read? Remember what Mark Twain said?"

"No. Mark Twain's been dead more than a hundred years. I do not remember what he said."

"The coldest winter of my life was the summer I spent in San Francisco," my husband started.

Then he proceeded to explain the wind patterns in Napa versus Fresno. These differences, he continued to say, denoted why one region made beverages that went in a glass, and the other made raisins and bag wine.

"Thanks," I told him. "I love you."

My friend L and her husband, A, came and picked me up. They made more comments on my lack of pants, and we set off to find dinner.

I was a little worried. We drove through the city. The sky was now the color of a dirty metallic blue CRV. People ran through the streets in winter coats with hoods up and sleeves pulled down over their hands.

"We are going to this Burmese restaurant. It should be good," L said.

L and I bailed out of the car while A parked the car. We made it to the restaurant, and two women in coats stood before us at the outside host stand, bouncing from foot to foot.

"It is so cold out here," the woman with the tan ankle-length coat said. "Can we eat inside?"

The host stated that there was no room inside, and the kitchen was only taking orders for another fifteen minutes. The women demanded to be allowed to stand inside and pushed past him.

The host, unsure if he should chase the women out, hesitated before making the decision to turn his attention to us.

"We have seats outside," he said, glancing at my clearly suspect shorts. "And I have blankets?"

He motioned to a tower of freshly folded blankets behind him. He knew we were going to say no. We could still hear the woman in the tan coat complaining. The host looked tired.

"I will take several blankets, and we can sit outside," I said.

"I... What?" he said.

"Can I have more than one blanket?" I rephrased.

He smiled. "I will give you all them."

And so we got seated right away. He gave us five blankets and told us we could have more if we wanted. They were fairly soft, clean, and warm. I wrapped my cloth-less legs in them and ordered Three Celebration Flower Tea for all of us.

My friends and I enjoyed our meal. We talked about the time L and I decided to drive over some mountains in one long-ago September. We were dressed in tank tops and shorts. A had been watching us leave. He stopped us. "Are you all taking coats?" He'd asked us.

"It's hot here!" We'd said.

"And you are going to ten-thousand feet."

So we'd taken coats, and that had been the correct answer.

So even though I was the idiot that flew to San Francisco in the summer and did not even pack pants, I was prepared by the fact that I had a life-time of experience of not bringing warm enough clothes to ventures in cold areas. I ate my spicy pork belly and drank my Three Flowers Celebration tea and pulled my communal, restaurant, blanket tighter around my legs and thought, I've trained for this.

And it was a wonderful dinner.