When the air is hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement, what is the correct thing to wear?

I was sitting beside the glass wall of the restaurant waiting to finish my iced tea, so guess what I saw? I saw lots of folks, men and women but more guys than girls, walking by in their black clothes! The temperature outside the mall must’ve been like 39 degrees or higher, so for them to make such a fashion statement was either very brave or very cool of them.

Why is black such a popular color even in summer, when the daytime temperature can go as high as a fever?

I didn’t dare ask any of the folks I saw at the mall, but I could guess that black is a popular color because it hides wrinkles as it hides stains, it is okay for daytime or nighttime, and it helps you stand out as surely as it can also make you invisible.

What about the comfort factor? Once outside the mall, or even while inside the elevator, what’s it like to be in black? And I’m not asking what if one is wearing socks and leather shoes!

Oh, well, to each his own. I’m more concerned that there are days when I’m killing time and cooling off in the efficiently airconditioned mall and I’m waiting to see a pregnant woman and there’s none on the scene.

Speaking of which, statisticians told us a year ago that the fertility rate was 1.47, by which they probably meant that the forecast is a fertile woman bearing more than one baby but not two. So when I asked the security guard at the mall entrance if he had seen a pregnant woman since the mall opened at 10 a.m., he replied, “No pregnant lady, only ladies with puppies in their baby strollers.”

As Marites will tell you, the ladies are either avoiding matrimony and babies or they’re just too smart to be caught in the love trap. Look at it this way. If you’re a grandmother today with six children, it’s likely that none of those six children will have or want to have six children of their own. I’m not talking statistics, I’m talking probabilities.