Disclaimer: I don’t have any photos of me in The Shirt because I tried for a good photo on a night my hair wasn’t washed and my eyes were involuntarily falling shut and the whole effect wasn’t pretty. Hence, stock. But she looks about as ungraceful as me so it’s true to the spirit of things anyway.

Hey you,

I was convinced of my own brilliance the other day in a splash of bright plaids and the glow of expected campfires.

It happened this way: Monday was not an easy day at work and by the end of the day I was mentally and emotionally done. It called me to either transition out of the stress through shopping or cooking, and since this wasn’t a cooking kind of night, Goodwill seemed like a place of less fiscal damages.

It just so happened it was full of things that I had wanted, or began wanting upon sight. A beautiful lace dress that actually hit below the knee, a soft lounge hoodie, a rich brown bomber jacket, a tee shirt with embroidery on the sleeves, YES. Yes to all the things.

Heading to check out I thought, “L, you have been doing this wrong all along. For years you have searched for the elusively perfect flannel shirt and they always fit weird.”

On Sunday, in a discussion about flannel shirts a friend had said that she just raids her husband’s collection if she wants one, and the light dawned.

I should be shopping in the men’s section. I don’t have a boyfriend, I’m not going to wait on one now to have The Perfect Flannel Shirt. Take life by the proverbial horns! No man from whom to steal a shirt? Get one yourself. The shirt, I mean, not the man. Though maybe the man too. In any case, to not be one of those people who perpetually waits for life to begin.

It was an easy detour into the men’s section and the work of two minutes to find a soft, non-tacky, flannel shirt. It was perfect: not too big, not too small. Bam, nabbed it and checked out. Ah, this was an after-glow. How creative of me! How innovative! My intelligence astonished me once again. I even bragged about it on my Snapchat story. The world deserved to know about this brilliant life hack.

Until I was home all of 1.5 hours and thought, “that would be an awfully small, short-armed man.”

Pride went before the Fall. The perfect fall, flannel women’s shirt because of course that is what it ended up being. A women’s shirt in the men’s section, found by one hoodwinked, less-than-bright shopper on an October day.

Happily it fits with the ease of men’s wear, warms the heart with the colors of an October New England forest, and is very decidedly made for cool nights, starry skies and campfires.

My brilliance is fading into a leafless, winter night, but thankfully autumn is still coming. Or is it, this hot Augtober? Either way, pride truly goes before a fall, so please, can the real autumn come and console me? I’m all ready now with the Perfect Fall Flannel Shirt.

Sincerely,

L. Raine