Pajama drills and annoying livestock

I like pajamas. In fact pajamas are my favourite pieces of clothing. Silky, satiny, flannel - depending on the occassion - I love them all.

Now having said that I wasn't a fan of "all purpose wear" - that rather ill-fated idea of a designer a few years ago thinking that pajamas can by styled in such a manner that it can be worn in public as well - it still looked like pajamas, no matter what you did with it.

In winter I can spend long evenings in my pajamas without feeling slightly style-less (now that I have given up on the ridiculous pink-doggie-slippers).

But having said that I never venture into public with my pjs. I will sometimes go chase away bunnies from the vegetable garden or confront errant members of the neighbourhood watch in the middle of the night but otherwise when going out I put on real clothes.

I am not sure why I am still surprised when humanity proved time and again that there usually is no end to bad manners and inconsiderate behaviour. So when I was drove past a rather awkward scene in Bird Street the other day involving a girl in very ill-fitting satin pajamas and very pink slippers, a man wearing pj bottoms and a rather amused policeman, I was surprised. In fact I stopped and enquired only to be entertained by a long tale of infidelity, larceny and something weird about the last cigarette in the packet before the conversation descended into a domestic dispute of such nastiness that the policeman had to intervene.

Since then I realised that there are quite a lot of people in Port Elizabeth who think it is ok to wear pajamas on the street. The other morning I saw an old man going to buy the paper in his robe, two women with the whole pajamas, robe and curlers ensemble chatting on the street corner, two women in pajamas popping into the cornershop in their pjs and one memorable woman who was driving a very fancy car and obviously didn't bother to get dressed before she dropped the kids off at school. Really people? What is wrong with a tracksuit? Or a t-shirt and jeans. SInce when has it become applicable to wear pajamas in public?

Now this doesn't annoy me on the scale that I am about to embark on a new law enforcement campaign similar to the great stop-peeing-in-public-law-enforcement-effort of 2006 when I testified in no less than 8 public indecency cases and won 8 convictions (I am a very good witness, haha ) - plus one guy got convicted twice when he, after being fined in an unprecedented act of defiance peed in the dustbin outside the court.

And honestly, this just doesn't happen in Cape Town. Cape Town might have flashers, people without teeth spitting in the street, strange drunken advocates pushing each other around in shopping trolleys and judges who sometimes wear feather boas but nobody I know who would possibly commit the social sin of wearing pajamas in public.

I guess it is better than wearing nothing - and it won't get you arrested, but for now I will just wish that people will have better manners and continue to stare hard and snort with derision - and continue living in the country where, even if people run around naked outside with their pants on their heads, I just wont see it or I will at least pretend not to because I have to deal with things like pigs having very loud piggy sex on my doorstep. Again. Despite my pleas to the neighbours about their slutty pig. For goodness sake.