Dressed for Disaster

Hotel room key, lipstick, compact, cigarettes and lighter, breath mints, tissues, hairbrush, and a woman's wallet with - how much? $80! Not very much to establish a new identity. Pat did not have a credit card for his female persona, and he had decided against carrying his ATM card. A new pair of pantyhose, a café latte, and an admission ticket to the stock exchange were the only things he had planned to spend any money on that morning.

So he would have to get by on the bare minimum required to strip away any traces of femininity. Looking to his left, he saw a 24-hour drug store, and went inside. The registers were crowded with people buying bottled water and gauze facemasks to help them breathe the acrid air outside.

First to the cosmetics aisle. Pat grabbed a small bottle of nail polish remover, and found a travel pack of pads to wipe off his makeup. Then to an aisle displaying inexpensive athletic clothing. He found a cheap pair of cotton navy sweatpants, and a white long sleeve tee shirt which said "I Love New York." A pair of white sox went into his basket, and he began to search for something to walk in. He found some white canvas sneakers, which were priced higher than he expected, and he tallied up the cost of what he had found. With sales tax, it came to almost $70, which meant he would be penniless if he bought anything else.

In order to leave himself enough change for a subway token and a phone call, he would have to keep wearing his white satin panties. He quickly decided that that was the least of his problems. He could always take them off before he got home, if he got home. Joining the long line at the registers, he started to plan his next objective: finding a place where he could get out of his dress and heels, change into his new clothes, and re-emerge as Patrick Summers.

The teenage clerk at the register looked at his odd assortment of purchases, and saw right through him. Damn! He had always had the most trouble with teenage girls!