The Dress Code
By Katharine Adams
November 2026
Today, I threw away a dress I half-wanted to keep. On a cleaning rampage, I scoured closets and drawers for stuff I reckoned I'd never wear again. It felt like opening the windows to breathe.
I had looked at the dress, stopping for a moment to turn it to and fro, liking it … but not loving it. A pang of guilt gripped me, since its life force had been quelled on a closet hanger for about five years.
It was not fancy. It was not a “dressy” dress. There was no finery, no fuss, no pretty throng of painterly flowers.
Rather, the frock was a blink away from being—and I’m whispering, so as not to hurt its feelings—downright dowdy.
A navy blue, oversize sack, it sported thin, ivory stripes and featured a strangely, dramatically deep V-neck with false buttons. Not actual buttoning buttons. Decency would direct the wearer of such a frock to layer a tank top beneath, to avoid any gaping Hollywood red-carpet shocker.
Illustration, K. Adams (adapted from photo by Ivan S/Pexels)
As a long, slinky sweater, it was the perfect dress to wear with knee socks and boots, Pippi Longstocking-style. I’d add maybe a leather aviator jacket and scarf to march out on the town for a boho music fest. It had plenty of potential, considering the way life with a busy musician regularly features in the social calendar.
Aloud, I mourned my little frock.
“Don’t worry about it,” there-there’d my forever sensible and bespectacled other half, from behind his newspaper. A pause. “Don’t worry about it,” he repeated, softly. Well-versed, he is, in my flights of folly.
It reminded me that decades ago, while creating ads for a small, local then-paper, an advertiser had successfully ghosted me to avoid paying its $35 design fee. I had bitterly complained like a parrot on repeat about the injustice over the span of a week, to the point where my compassionate, dear mother uttered, “Oh, for God's sake,” and plopped $35 on my kitchen counter to please just let it go, in the name of peace.
The frock had gone into the very last bag among seven total, tossed into a donation dumpster. A decent-looking bin with gleaming paint, I considered it akin to a nice, fall outing in an Airstream camper. Maybe I would return the next morning to dive in and liberate it from the cavern?
One by one, I had hoisted bags up and fed them into the gaping, hungry mouth of the clothing recycle bin.
While I lifted that very last bag, the one with the dress, the one I waited until the last moment to toss in, because maybe I’d change my mind and grab it out, and because my fellow mind-changers know how important it is to keep our options endlessly open—I chastised myself aloud: “Just let it go! Out it goes!”
So I let go of that last precious bag, closed the chute, and heard the bulk of it slide and land inside with a thud. Secretly, I was relieved that it rested near the top of the heap. Just in case I fancied fashioning a hook like Little Bo Peep to nudge it back out into my waiting arms. But I knew I had better make a quick plan, for who knows when the big mother donation truck comes collecting?
While driving away, I’d love to report that I had instantly cut the umbilical dress code.
But instead, predictably, I regretted throwing out my funny little rag. We had not even had our day in the sun yet. I had held a vision for five years—one where an old mare of a certain age becomes Pipi, skipping through a field of goldenrod to a hoedown.
Alas, I woke up the day after the deed and the sun was shining. I was a new person, glad not to trifle over some silly dress. Its inquisitive little sister, Static Cling, would have been tagging along, anyway.
The Rural Ethicist is a column about the culture of the daily mundane. It tolerates the occasional spider, thrills over Latin botanical names, and seeks the gleaming, stainless steel wisdom beneath a film of cooking grease. Above all, it cherishes the gem of our shared existence: family. ruralethicstudio.com