Jean Suit Embargo

I’m no fashion plate.  That in of itself cannot be denied by anyone that knows me and especially my 20-year old daughter.  But I try at least to look somewhat decent and match the whole pants/belt/socks/shirt/shoes thing the vast majority of days.  Of course I still don’t know what color shoes/belt to wear with blue pants, but that’s usually a game-time decision.

So it came as somewhat of a surprise to me the other day when I went out to lunch in the broad daylight and found that I had matched EXACTLY the color of my pants with the color of my coat.  This was a fashion faux pas to me the likes of which has not been seen for quite some time.  Here’s a picture of the horrididity:

 

My jacket and pants combo.  Ugh.

You can see that I look like about to go repair a flywheel cog on a CAT HC-155AX Thermo-coupling hyphenator.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that job.  I can’t decide whether I look more like a wrinkled-skin old elephant or a depressed Michael Jackson with all the zippers and pockets.  To make matters worse, it was 8 degrees out (I know this because everyone posts their thermometers to Facebook – thank goodness!) and I couldn’t take the coat off due to the possible de-perishment of my good body.

It reminds me of a bygone day where I casually strolled into my office on a casual day feeling all casual in my blue jeans.  Feeling even MORE casual I had casually thrown on a blue jean coat – making the whole look I was going for to be like an anorexic cowboy with a bad haircut.  And a mustache.  I actually thought I either looked like Vinnie Barbarino in “Welcome Back Kotter” or Greg Evigan in “BJ and the Bear”  My co-workers thought I looked like either Arnold Horshack in “Welcome Back Kotter” or the Bear in “BJ and the Bear”.  My good friend Jeff (who is SUPPOSED to be writing another column for this blog – that’s right, I called you out) came up to me and said ‘Nice jean suit’.  It was such a brilliant way of scarring me for life that the blue jean combination has never come out of my closet again.

Of course that was the same office where the resident ‘hottie’ got away with wearing short skirts because even though the material was FAR less and FAR less appropriate, it was MORE EXPENSIVE than a plain blouse that resembled a sweatshirt that another ‘less hot’ girl wore.  We never could figure that one out – except that the hottie could have probably beaten the boss up if she wanted to.  Ah – the ‘80s.

I’ve always had trouble with clothes-wearing at offices.  My last job required me to wear the same polo shirt (two different colors) every single day.  I had a standing deal with the staff that if we all wore the same color on a given day (13 of us) that I would buy them lunch.  Stupid me didn’t figure out that they could all talk and plot out what color to wear on a certain day – and I had a pattern of switching every other day to the other color so they figured out what I would be wearing the next day.  It only took me eight $100 lunches to figure out their plan.  As George Bush said “”There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

I also hate going in to a store where the workers normal outfits are slacks and polos.  Target – I’m looking at you.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone in to Target wearing a red polo shirt and been accosted by a 68-year old man looking for the repair kit to a flywheel cog on a CAT HC-155AX Thermo-coupling hyphenator.  A lot.  Best Buy is another one because the ignorant Best Buy customers only look for color (like a hyena on crack (I don’t know what that means)) and blissfully ignore the fact that you have a golf course logo on your polo and no name tag.  So wearing the Best-Buy-Blue will get you nothing but requests for laptop batteries and abuse from disgruntled 68-year old men you sent to Best Buy when you falsely worked at Target.

So no longer will you see the Gray Suit OR the Jean Suit.  I’m sorry if I offended anyone that day with what I was wearing.  Good thing it wasn’t a dark, stormy day or I may have just faded into the background with my grayness.  And thank you to all of my co-workers for pointing out the travesty that occurred.  I will repay that kindness the next time you wear that outfit that you know you will….