Panera Bread Before 8am is No Place for the Common Man

Early this week before I went into to work, I got into town early to go to the tanning bed and had a little extra time, so I decided to get some coffee at Panera Bread. Dressed in my usual driving to work apparel, shorts and a t-shirt, since I have NO FREAKING AIR CONDITIONING in my car, I ordered my coffee and power breakfast sandwich. Now, I noticed the nicely dressed woman next to me cutting me some unusual sideways glances, but I didn't pay much attention. However, when the man in the suit and tie next to me gave me a cold, hard stare as we fixed our coffee, I began to wonder what was up. Did I have a booger hanging out of my nose, was there toilet paper on my shoe, I mean why were these people looking at me like I was out of place?

That's when I looked around and realized that I was, in fact, out of place. I was the only one in the entire restaurant not dressed in full on business attire. THE ONLY ONE. Not anyone on their way back from the gym, no women just stopping by before going to the grocery, every single person had on some version of a suit, tie, dress pants, skirt. Apparently, there is a dress code at this time in Panera Bread, and I was not following it. As I carried on to my table, people looked at me with mild disgust. "Who is this woman, and why doesn't she have a job?" I wanted to stick a sign on my table that said, "Yes, I work. Yes, I will change before work. I just don't want my clothes to be sweaty when I get there."

Now, if there is one thing worse than being in your gym shorts at 7:30am in Panera Bread, it is being in your gym shorts at 7:30am in Panera Bread and spilling your entire large cup of coffee. Naturally, I looked around to see who saw me do this (everyone) and laughed as I grabbed a large stack of napkins to clean up. Nobody else was laughing.

So lesson learned, next time I want some hazelnut coffee on a work week morning, I will need to either go to Starbucks or get my suit dry cleaned.