Last week, Harry took Junior into the family room and sat him
down. And in that grand, time-honored tradition, Harry explained
what it was like to be a man. Yes, it was time for
”
The Talk.
”
No, not THAT talk. The clothing talk.
Last week, Harry took Junior into the family room and sat him down. And in that grand, time-honored tradition, Harry explained what it was like to be a man. Yes, it was time for “The Talk.”
No, not THAT talk. The clothing talk.
You know the clothing talk. If you are a man, you have received this talk – and more than likely given it to your unsuspecting male offspring. The clothing talk is a speech given by men since the cave days. It says, in a nutshell, that no man who has a perfectly good significant other or mother shall ever, under any circumstances, be allowed to select his own clothing.
Hey, I don’t make the rules. I just write about them. And there is a long and respected history behind the clothing rule.
In early cave times, a cavewoman would greet her caveman after he returned home from a long day in the gravel pit and say “Ogg, you cannot wear that ratty old fur to Oona and Moona’s brontosaurus feast tonight. Here, I bought you a lovely new bear fur while I was at Cave-Kohl’s.” And Ogg would protest – feebly. But you just know that when Ogg showed up at the brontosaurus feast that night, he was dressed in a shiny new bear pelt.
And it progressed from there. Do you think ancient Greek men picked out their own togas? I think not. And all those puritans – the wives picked out those cute little hats and shoes with the funny buckles – what puritan man would want shiny little buckles on his shoes? I’m serious. Do you honestly believe that at any time in history a man has been allowed to pick his wardrobe?
Look, don’t shoot the messenger, but this rule is invoked at birth. For example, it’s a tradition to give a shower for a pregnant woman, right? Until recently, a shower consisted of mostly women getting together to celebrate another woman getting fat and joining the big butt club – er, I mean, having a baby. Anyway, the gifts are mainly teeny, tiny t-shirts and itty-bitty onesies with giraffes and lambs dancing across the front.
Of course, in these days of equality, men attend the showers, too. Personally, I think they are just there for free beer and a chance to sympathize with the father-to-be who has just realized that his very manly, yet-to-be-born baby boy will spend the first three years of his life dressed in a sailor suit or a Winnie the Pooh outfit.
And yet, some still rebel.
It’s kind of cute. Fathers bringing home little, tiny Harley jackets. Or teeny-weeny muscle t’s. Basically, anything that their sons can wear to cover up the dancing giraffe. But it won’t work. Because no matter how many baby Monster Garage t-shirts a man brings home, the truth is, a woman will take over the household clothing responsibilities.
Oh, I know. Most men will tell you that they picked out their own clothes in the time spent between living at home and dating/marrying/cohabitating. And, hey, more power to them. They must have been picking out something right, because they managed to hook themselves a wonderful woman. But let me ask you this. What’s the very first thing a new girlfriend does for her new man?
That’s right. She picks out his clothes.
Do you see where I’m going with this? It’s a law of nature – man cannot pick his own outfits. Take my husband, for example. If left on his own, Harry’s entire wardrobe would consist of five plaid shirts, three pairs of jeans from the 80’s, a faux-silk shirt with the solar system on it, a pair of Angel Flight genuine polyester pants and 432 free t-shirts he got at trade shows.
These, incidentally, are the clothes that Harry had before we got married. Harry figures if they were good enough to attract me then, they’re good enough to attract me now. Unfortunately for Harry, that’s not really true. And that is why our house is a polyester-free zone.
Because no woman wants her friends to know that she married someone who would wear plaid shirts and angel flight pants. Even if we all did.
