It's Fashion Friday!: Of Mercedes And Messy Men

           I must confess immediately that I am slightly inebriated. It has been a while since I’ve written a fashion post… to quote Rhett Butler, “Frankly, Scarlet, I don’t give a damn.” (I was required to read that god-awful book before ninth grade English and the scars are still there, all 1000+ pages worth). Honestly, I’ve been trying to be less judgmental. Well, not trying, have been. I was inspired by my friend Leslie – she just doesn’t give a shit. It’s not in a negative way either. It’s pragmatic. She and we all have more important things to worry about. Back to my being inebriated…

            I just had a belated birthday dinner (complete with three cocktails loaded with whiskey and Aperol! HEAVEN!) in one of my favorite restaurants. On the way out of the restaurant, I was given the  

A Simple Guide from Primermagazine.com. Note
that in the "X" example the shirt tail meets the thigh gap...

blessed sight of a wedding party taking pictures to my left. They looked lovely. And, entering the restaurant, I nearly collided head on with a trio of gingers with sticks so far up their asses that their posture rivaled that of newly planted telephone poles. This was not a family of meager upbringing, no. They came out of their oversized Mercedes SUV, dropped off as close to the door as possible (it can’t be comfortable to walk around with posts up your bum), and had the most miserable angry expressions on their faces. SMILE KIDS. You’re going for dinner! Goodness. The one left in the car, the driver, the kingpin of ass-pole stardom, was the most ridiculous specimen of them all and the winner of “Fashion Friday Blog Dusted Off” inspiration.

            To be fair, I am not a man. Given that obvious fact, I do my best to keep the berating of men’s fashion choices to a minimum. I judge, but I keep it inside. You know what? That’s a complete lie. Last week I asked a teen boy’s friends if the boy was homeless. They looked at me like I was insane so I continued speaking. “If your friend isn’t homeless, WHY doesn’t he have SHOES on in a restaurant?! That’s GROSS.” I was in Chipotle, and it was gross. Judging by the color of the affluent child’s feet, he hadn’t had his shoes on for several hours. I digress. Mr. Ass-Pole, as I will call him, got out of his fancy car and walked towards the restaurant, stopping to check whatever important things were happening at his mobile device. This is when I noticed his attempt at casual attire and scoffed.

Brad Richards in a Medoc shirt from Untuckit.com
(Photo from their website)

            Khaki pants ordinarily would work quite well with an un-tucked button down shirt. I myself can’t stand wearing tucked in shirts. It’s not comfortable. Who wants a shirt getting stuck under their bum when they sit down, wrinkling, moving all around…. to hell with that. My problem is that this man was wearing his button down shirt un-tucked, but it was a DRESS SHIRT. I once before wrote about this for ladies, in a much gentler manner. 

           If you stand on the side of someone wearing an un-tucked shirt and it is not straight across, but instead looks more like a round-bottomed w, it should be tucked in! These shirts are specifically tailored to be inside the pants. Wearing such a shirt outside the pants does not make the wearer look casual, but like a slob. This is SUCH a problem that upon Googling “mens shirts tailored untucked” I even found an ENTIRE WEBSITE of button down shirts designed specifically for that purpose! Untuckit.com. Clever. (They are even endorsed by Brad Richards. And while he may not be a Bruin, he is a hockey player. That's good enough for me). If you want a fancier shirt of the Brooks Brothers persuasion and you insist on wearing it outside of the pants, TAKE IT TO A TAILOR. If you can afford to shop at Brooks Brothers, you can afford a $12 hem/crop. And most CERTAINLY, if you can afford to drive a Mercedes GL Class SUV ($63000+), YOU CAN AFFORD TO WEAR THE RIGHT DAMNED SHIRT.

Convenient Packaging, My Ass! (Not to be confused with conveniently packaging my ass, an entirely different matter)

            Since it is voting day here in the US and people are taking the time to battle long lines, annoying people with signs, and interacting with old ladies at desks who match address and name on a piece of paper with whatever you tell them (SERIOUSLY, here in midsize town New England I could walk in and vote for any person that lives on my street), just so they can put in their two cents on which idiots they want wasting their money on things like new designs for quarters, I thought a rather serious topic should be addressed. We need to discuss why food manufacturers think that it is acceptable to put liquid foods in containers which render you unable to get the last freaking sips out.

Looks like a smart container design, does it?
 I don't think so.

            I have been in a rage about this for months in the matter of coconut water. It’s not just one brand. It seems to be a multi-brand problem. For those of you who aren’t fans of coconut water, let me share the crux of the issue. Coconut water, being a somewhat crunchy, neo-hippy, yuppy sort of beverage, comes in cardboard recyclable containers. That’s all well and good, except the containers are rectangular boxes with a round hole un-centered in the flat top with a port stuck in it for pouring. A milk container, or an orange juice container, or a cream container, ALL in cardboard rectangular boxes, would open from the box into a spout so you can pour ALL of the liquid out. A juice box is manufactured in such a way that you can squeeze the life and last drops out of the box while you suck the fluid up with a straw. But with coconut water, which is about as cheap as a movie theatre fountain soda, they (the evil tropical fluid packaging empire) make it physically impossible to get the last drops into a glass or your mouth.

I have tried all kinds of strange neck acrobatics, with my head tilted back, to the side, weeble-wobbling to and fro, and practically upside down, to try and wrangle those last drops from the sides of the cardboard towards that port on the top of the box to absolutely no avail. It’s a wonder I haven’t given myself a slipped disc. It’s like trying to play one of those ridiculous cardboard games where you tilt it back and forth to put all the little tiny metal balls in recessed holes. Impossible and unbelievably irritating. I am not a quitter. Throwing out that box that still has coconut water in it makes me feel like I have failed and disappointed myself, not to mention the feelings of waste, loss, and being cheated out of something I paid for.

960 MG OF SODIUM.
That makes a hot dog look
like a health food. 

            Last week I decided to bring some Campbell’s salt, I mean soup, in a cup to work for a snack. Their microwaveable sippy-cup of soup is really a great idea in theory. Heat it up and drink it out of the cup shaped container, which is even ergonomically shaped to fit your hand. I chose Chicken with Stars. It’s a favorite from my childhood. Star shaped pasta tastes better than long noodles, obviously. You would think a company like Campbell’s would have their shit together, but, apparently, that’s just not the case. 

           Just like with the coconut water, I got to the end of the cup, and there was an obstruction where a whole bunch of the stars got stuck! So then I was sitting at work, a place where I’d rather people didn’t think I was mentally disabled, trying to get the rest of the soup out of the cup. Again, I instinctively charged into the “You’re probably going to regret this later” head tilting routine. This time it was accompanied by some vigorous shaking to account for the solid nature of the star pasta. I managed to get some of the stars out! But they didn’t end up in my mouth. The angle wasn’t quite right and they launched themselves down my shirt. They might as well have stayed in the cup. I wasn’t about to eat them off my chest.

            Just think about all the other foods in containers that are cheating us out of our last drops. Whipped cream. Spray cheese. Beer – you know how those last drops adhere to the glass bottle. Although I suppose I can’t blame the breweries for the physical and chemical properties of water.  

            Eating is not supposed to be this difficult, especially when the foods are packaged in what is supposed to be “convenient” packaging. I don’t enjoy being forced to waste things simply because they won’t come out of the box. I end up feeling that I was screwed out of a few cents. I hope that whoever is elected today will address this issue. With so much talk of waste, here is an actual example of waste that I feel directly affected by. I want to be compensated for the food that I do not get to eat because it remains in the package. I also think that compensation for the emotional distress that this issue is causing me would be nice as well. At the very least, someone should send me some coupons…