Is It Okay to Go Outside in Your Nightgown?

The annual meeting of the New Orleans Eccentrics' Union had the question-and-answer session, and there were the usual how-to questions that speakers had to field from those needing info on how to be all the eccentric they were meant to be. In this case, the question raised was in two delicate areas: morality and fashion. Now New Orleans as a medium-sized city has opinions galore; opinions to rival Rome on morality and San Francisco on fashion! So this question glided like a manhole cover towards The Monseigneur. the expendable cleric de jour who delivered the invocation.

The question, asked by Hortense Bordelon, was "Is it sinful or tacky to go outside to get the newspaper or water the lawn while you're still wearing a nightgown?

The Monseigneur hemmed and hawed, asked about the intention of the wearer, and how brief and revealing it happened to be. He also pled ignorance about what constitutes tackiness. But he quibbled and said that if the nightgown was transparent or short, it could constitute a near occasion of sin.

Fashion maven and local eccentric Maureen Glapion say that nightgown wearing should be kept to the boudoir; no au courant fashionista would dare appear even in the rec room (itself an unfashionable setting) in a nightgown, much less out-of-doors. She further averred that, in cases of dire need, the nightgown-wearer should at least wear a house coat!

Maven Maureen commented further that any appearance out of doors should always be preceded by putting on makeup as well. A proper fashion-conscious Orleanian should not risk being seen by the postman or the water meter reader without proper makeup and dressed seasonably appropriately. Meaning, don't go out in your bedroom slippers!

But Crazy Chester asked about guys' dress. Is it okay to go out in your boxer shorts, or should you wear pajamas? The thought of Crazy Chester wearing boxers stunned the audience briefly into silence. Would they be decorated in some pattern? Ms. Glapion recovered first, and answered "pajamas." The Monseigneur just looked amazed, as he was trying to digest these thoughts!

Madeline the Prophetess asked, "How about your L.S.U. nightshirt? Or is it okay to go out in your white guepiere to retrieve your Sunday Times-Picyaune if you are also wearing high heels?" The Monseigneur, not knowing what one is, said it was probably alright.

The next day, the Archbishop was reading his newspaper when he read the fashion page headline: "Monseigneur declares that it is fashionable and not sinful to wear a guepiere out of doors." The Archbishop groaned, and thought, "This sort of thing is a downside of priestly celibacy!"