Now gentlemen, I give you…your comeuppance. It seems that throughout your formative years, you were so busy learning how to spit and to calculate the elapsed time since the last airing of Sports Center that you never learned how to dress yourselves. Time and again I walk past an otherwise neat and earnest young go-getter only to shrink back in horror when I observe the sartorial atrocities he has committed. We are going to catalogue them from most to least egregious but you should note that these offenses are different only in degree (and yes, I am aware that, technically, there are no degrees of egregiousness, but I could do without the back talk). They all share the common characteristic of announcing to the world that you were raised by wolves.
Just the other day I almost bounced a young man from an interview I was not even conducting because I saw him marching toward his inquisition wearing a blazer and slacks of the same color. Those of you thinking to yourselves, “Wow, that sounds like a pretty snappy combo,” are beyond salvation and should consider occupations that require you to use no discretion whatsoever; perhaps a garbage man, or a senator. The problem is that by trying to make a “suit” out of “not a suit,” you project an image of being a lazy slob who will cut corners and cannot be bothered to observe even the most elementary of social graces. A prospective employer or client might wonder, if you are willing to patch this little ensemble together, what sort of duct taped, jerry-rigged mass of techno scrap you are going to produce for them with the money you were supposed to use to install a new network server. “Oh don’t worry sir, Linux works just like Windows only cheaper…of course it shuts down periodically and without warning but if you just hold the ‘ctrl’ key at all times, that seems to do the trick.”
The blazer bonanza is perhaps the gateway offense to the next issue on our agenda…vents and tags. Something on the Y chromosome must make the menfolk terrified of threads because it seems you cannot bear to cut anything that is sewn to the clothes you buy. I shudder to reflect on the countless cases of a vented jacket or overcoat still bearing the telltale “x” stitch holding the back in place like a glaring scarlet letter as an eternal reminder of your sin against good manners…eternal, that is, until you remove it. For those of you having trouble following this discussion, I will put it in terms that you can understand: the string holding the flappy thing together on your new suit is meant to be CUT OFF! The same goes for the label on the sleeve to remind you which has-been designer happened to have their shipment of merchandise on sale the day you went to TJMaxx. No one cares that your ill fitting duds were hand-crafted by Alfredo Linguine in Florence, China so just bag the tag and we can all move one with our lives.
However what I absolutely cannot understand is whether you have just been oblivious to the buttons under your short collar or were confused about their function. Normally, when you see a button and a button hole, instinct should take over and impel you toward social self preservation. But we must have found the missing link because I continue to see gents out and about without a care in the world and their collars flapping in the breeze. This is not the natural order of things. A truly well crafted collar will be stiff and have a slot for a small piece of metal or plastic to keep it straight and neat. Naturally, though, this is too advanced a concept for you so the good folks at the shirt manufacturers have simplified things. No need to keep track of extra components. The buttons are right there for your use, every time, right were they should be…directly under the holes into which you are supposed to push them (TWSS…but there’s no time, but she did, but there’s no time).
As per usual, I will not leave you without a solution. First of all, you should stop being such a tightwad. Get a little extravagant and make a trip to Filene’s Basement for a proper suit. It may cost you a little more than your usual $15 blue light special, but I promise you it is worth a couple of weeks of downgrading to Red Stripe from your usual PBR. Secondly, stop being such a lazy so-and-so. I know you have the manual dexterity of mentally challenged walrus but they even make special scissors for people like you now so there’s really no excuse. As for the shirt situation, just take one day and walk around your house gathering your shirts up off of the floor, or the back of the chair, or under the kitchen sink and button the collars while you’re watching PTI. Whatever you do, though, do NOT miss the third re-run of Sports Center. It always, ALWAYS has new information than it had the two times before.
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