Community Pants
Let me ask you a question. If I came up to you and said, "Hey, I've got these pants. They're your size. Why don't you put them on?" What would you do? If you're like me, you'd grab them and run. I mean, hey, free pants.
I mean, hey, free pants.
If you're like the other 99.99999% of the population, you'd move quickly away, never taking your eyes off them. Why is it then, that we approach complete strangers and pay them for the
privilege of wearing random stranger pants?
These questions (and others, such as, "Does a garbage can full of dirty water have any disinfectant value?") occurred to me as I was shelling out $40 for wetsuits for me and Mrs. Manion.
Over the course of my life, I've shelled out hundreds of dollars to wear the public pants. And it distresses me. Of course, it distresses me less than the thousands I would have to pay to buy my own wetsuits and tuxedos.
It's probably because of my brother. He is known by many different names. "Sonny Burnett," "The King of Sex," "Toes," "The Biz-ness Man," and most relevantly, "The Tux-ecutioner" Back before he was arrested, he was your worst nightmare as a tux rental employee. His dream was to fit somebody with a full-on three piece gold lame tuxedo. He never quite fulfilled it, but he came close in lots of ways.
Was your tux too short? That's the European style. Did he rent you a wool tux in summer? It's okay. It's tropical wool. Does your tux have a strangely crunchy texture? That's from the ironing. They had about six tuxes out back. The tux didn't fit you. You fit the tux. And my brother was willing to go to tremendous lengths to make it happen.
He would come home at night and regale us with stories of entire wedding parties wearing tuxes built for vastly smaller people. He specialized in proms. My brother is the singlehanded cause of virtually every prom date that showed up in powder blue and ruffly shirts. He did this not because he's a bad person, but because....
{lengthy pause}
OK, so he's a bad person, but the stories were a hell of a lot of fun. I mean, if you can't take delight in the suffering of others, then where the heck can you take it? I suppose when your tux is being fitted by a criminally-minded seventeen year old in suburban Rhode Island you can't really ask for the best in tailoring. He's now out in California working at a casino. At least until his felony record comes out.
And that's why I hate community pants.
LM
I mean, hey, free pants.
If you're like the other 99.99999% of the population, you'd move quickly away, never taking your eyes off them. Why is it then, that we approach complete strangers and pay them for the
privilege of wearing random stranger pants?
These questions (and others, such as, "Does a garbage can full of dirty water have any disinfectant value?") occurred to me as I was shelling out $40 for wetsuits for me and Mrs. Manion.
Over the course of my life, I've shelled out hundreds of dollars to wear the public pants. And it distresses me. Of course, it distresses me less than the thousands I would have to pay to buy my own wetsuits and tuxedos.
It's probably because of my brother. He is known by many different names. "Sonny Burnett," "The King of Sex," "Toes," "The Biz-ness Man," and most relevantly, "The Tux-ecutioner" Back before he was arrested, he was your worst nightmare as a tux rental employee. His dream was to fit somebody with a full-on three piece gold lame tuxedo. He never quite fulfilled it, but he came close in lots of ways.
Was your tux too short? That's the European style. Did he rent you a wool tux in summer? It's okay. It's tropical wool. Does your tux have a strangely crunchy texture? That's from the ironing. They had about six tuxes out back. The tux didn't fit you. You fit the tux. And my brother was willing to go to tremendous lengths to make it happen.
He would come home at night and regale us with stories of entire wedding parties wearing tuxes built for vastly smaller people. He specialized in proms. My brother is the singlehanded cause of virtually every prom date that showed up in powder blue and ruffly shirts. He did this not because he's a bad person, but because....
{lengthy pause}
OK, so he's a bad person, but the stories were a hell of a lot of fun. I mean, if you can't take delight in the suffering of others, then where the heck can you take it? I suppose when your tux is being fitted by a criminally-minded seventeen year old in suburban Rhode Island you can't really ask for the best in tailoring. He's now out in California working at a casino. At least until his felony record comes out.
And that's why I hate community pants.
LM
posted by Lance Manion at 6:49 PM
2 Comments:
This post reminded me of a British sitcom about a department store men's department (Are You Being Served?).
They had a special technique of "kneeing" the sleeves of any suit so it would "fit" -- meaning putting a knee into the sleeve to rip out the stitches. :)
I suppose it's a little late to mention that I used to work in Harrods. But in the toy department. Sad.
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