Wardrobe Function

For some reason, Mom believes that I've got a job interview today. Maybe it's because I told her last night that I'm going into the city for a job interview, but I don't claim to understand how her mind works. In any case, it's the last time I lie to her about having an interview, because this morning, she went into conniptions when I refused to wear khaki pants to this imaginary interview. The arguing went back and forth...

Mom: You have to wear long pants.

Jay: But it's going to be eighty-seven degrees out!

Mom: You can't go to a job interview in shorts.

Jay: But I don't want to be all sweaty all day long!

Mom: No one else there will be wearing shorts. Some people will even being wearing ties.

Jay: Stop telling me how to dress! You always treat me like a child!

At which point I locked myself in my room and told her, "La la la, I'm not listening to you! You're not the boss of me!" 8-)

Mom points out that there are lots of people, lawyers and CEO's and poor dudes working at the Mens Wearhouse, who have to wear a suit and tie every day, no matter wha t the heat index. I even wore a suit and tie to my first job interview, at the U.S. Small Business Administration. It was approximately a hundred degrees outside and I was being slow-roasted in my own sweat thanks to the wardrobe. Needless to say, I didn't get the job, and I blamed it on the tie. (Honest. The interviewer told me I looked a bit uncomfortable — always a good sign — and I told it was cause of the tie.)

Getting dressed up just seems stupid, and I personally have as little respect for people who wear three-piece suits and ties in the middle of fucking summer as I do for people who go around shirtless in February. Unless they're chicks, in which case they can go shirtless whenever they like, and I won't complain. Mom says, "Well, what would you do if you if you lived in colonial times, when people wore layers and layers, all wool, no matter how hot it was outside?" I'd die of heatstroke, that's what I'd do.

And I'd like to point out to everyone who says people got along fine back in the day, even though they dressed for a blizzard no matter what the season and it was scandalous to show a millimeter of ankle and there was no air conditioning and no electric fans: back in those days, life expectancy was in the late thirties, and people said "thine" and "thee" and "methinks," and there was slavery back then.

There, I said it: suits and ties are racist.