habitual.

We're in a development meeting and, as usual, we've veered wildly off topic. Some day, I will post an easy cop-out entry that consists of a list of topics that have come up in these meetings. But as my current running tally is only five items long and has only one reference to transportation modes of zombies*, it won't be today. We're talking about costumes actually. I still don't feel entirely comfortable in this environment. I don't feel like part of the team yet, and so I make my quips, but I make them quietly, as much to myself as to the two or three people who can hear them. Perhaps you can measure how long someone has been at a company by the volume of her voice at company meetings.

So anyway, we're talking about costumes. Before I know what's happening, I hear the words, "Hey, I've got a nun's habit if you want to borrow it." come out of my mouth. I've said it much too loud. Take it back, take it back.

"You have a what? Seriously?" Nope, too late. This reply comes from my boss.

"I, uh, shouldn't have said that."

I do, in fact, have a nun's habit. My mom made it for me on the night before Halloween, 1997. My high school had adopted a policy that students were allowed to wear costumes provided they did not cover the face. For some reason, I got it in my head that I wanted to be a nun more than anyone has ever wanted to be a (fake) nun before. So my mom bought a bunch of black fabric and created a habit. I'm not sure why she loved me enough to do that. Mother Theresa's mom told her to go make her own darn habit.**

I had conned a guy friend who harbored a secret crush on me into dressing as a priest. Nothing like exploiting a secret crush that isn't very secret! And Mama had done a great job, mostly going off a picture of a penguin nun. There was a costume contest at school with a list of multiple winners from which my name was conspicuously absent. I suspect foul play.

I've used the habit a few more times over the years, always in similar circumstances. When you need a good costume, it's handy to have. I added a balloon once to make the pregnant nun costume, and also loaned out the habit once to a friend. I never really established what she needed it for, so perhaps she was doing some spritual searching.

I think now that my habit is languishing away in the back of a closet at my parents' house. I don't have much use for it, though I think I might fetch it so that it can languish away in the back of my closet, just in case I need it. You never know.

So, yes, I seriously own a nun's habit. Maybe I shouldn't have said that.

* This is absolutely true.
** This is probably not true.