I’m on my way to the gym today and decide to sit on a bench in the sun.  And this lady sits next to me.  Seems like a typical frumpy middle-aged NY-er with a Strand totebag, but out of the blue she asks me, “Are you religious?”  Now, I had been using my stylus and iPhone, and this was not at all the question I was expecting/hoping to hear. 

I say, “Not particularly,” and she says, “Because you’re wearing a skirt!” with a look of bewildered delight on her face, as if I was wearing a sun bonnet or some other legitimate relic. 

She continues, “You know, most women wear pants.  So I wondered why you were wearing a skirt.”  I stare at her, then reply that I decided to wear a skirt today for no particular reason.  And then decide my sunshine needs are met and scurry away to the gym. 

wtf?!?  It really felt like she was fresh out of a head-covering cult and was just getting used to the pants thing herself and couldn’t believe someone would deliberately put on a skirt unless they were compelled to.  But I think she was just a slightly air-headed person who wanted to make conversation and maybe had an idea that there were Jewish skirt-loyalists in NY and perhaps she had met a live one.