Winter wear with a side of ugly, please.

"Sometimes you have to give up a little style to stay warm," Cowboy said to me, hammer in hand and tool belt around his waist.

I shook my head.

"I don't believe in that," I said, remembering the days of hiking two-foot snow drifts in two-inch heels.

"What about ear muffs?" I said, rummaging the closets of Cowboy's grandmother, preparing for an evening of garage wiring and light installing.

I'd offered to help install lights and wires yesterday in a senior citizen's two-stall garage. I assist because it gives me an excuse not to do laundry. And so I can show off the blisters on my middle fingers.

The garage was built for Cowboy's grandmother this summer to shelter her freezer and a teal-blue mini-van. But she can't. Not until the place has power. Naturally, Cowboy, an electrician by trade, waited until the evening of the area's first hard freeze to install it. He'll tell you his excuse is the flood and the sandbagging and losing his house and all. Hogwash. I blame Fantasy Football.

But I digress...

"I might have a stocking cap you can wear..." he offered.

My face contorted with the thought of static-y helmet hair. "Maybe I'll just do without."

Sure. I could've worn winter wear of my own. I'd arrived sporting black mittens and a green pea coat Grandma D deemed "Sooo cute. Does he tell you how you look in that? So cute!" 


So while the coat of evergreen is probably replaceable, no garage-wiring project is worth the risk of its demise.

"Here," Cowboy said, wrapping me in a men's size XL letter jacket with hood made of sweatshirt material. "You can cover your ears with this."

I pulled the hoodie over my deliberately-messy ponytail and checked myself in the mirror. This isn't too bad, I thought. I've looked worse.

"Wait," he said, tying the hoodie's shoestrings in a bow. "Protect your ears."

"Nooooo!" I cried as if he'd dropped an antique tea cup my Irish ancestors brought with on the boat to America. "That's ugly."

"We gotta prepare you for the weather up here," he said, leading me outside and promising to protect me from woodchucks, badgers and feral cats.

"Listen," I said, pointing my finger and pausing for effect. "This is winter No. 3. I don't need you. I've prepared myself."

"Ok, but these temperatures can kill you," he said, daring to question the abominable Katie the Lady.

"I survived last year. I can do it again," I said, pumping my fist and showing off the sculpt of my guns.

"Right," he said, rolling his eyes. "You'll be the hottest dead chick in town."