Spring Cleaning

When he sent his kids off to college, his wife demanded that they clean out the attic. No longer would it be messy and full of crap they didn’t need. Who knew what they would put in there but they were consumers, he was sure that they would find something. He opened the door to his attic and the smell of sawdust and must flowed out, as the fan in the adjacent room pulled the air towards itself. He creaked up the steps in his socks and when he reached the top he stopped to look around. Dozens of cardboard boxes piled on top of each other and made the project look much more formidable than it previously had. He started with a top box of a pile way in the corner, opened it up, creaked down the steps with it in his arms, and threw it into the back of the car. He did the same for the rest in the pile until he had reached the last one. When he reached the last one, he noticed that it was dusty and hadn’t been opened for some time. It figured. He had realized at his first child’s first birthday that he was not the nostalgic person he had once thought he was. He read the label. “Italian” was scrawled in a sharpie across the front. He opened it and looked inside. It was full of cut-aways and no break trousers that he had stopped wearing long before his first child was born. He shrugged and closed the box back up and took it out to the car.

When he started to take the second pile out to the car, he read the label of the top box. It read, “Americana/timeless”. He didn’t even bother to open it up as he picked it up and took it down the stairs.

Reasonable

Perhaps out of a desire to write about new things, to be first amongst amateur menswear reporters, we forget about simple things like LL Bean and other mid-range brands.

“Nah, brah, even my undershirts are three figures.”
“Was it a custom order for Context?”
“My jacket was inspired by Shackleton’s doomed expedition but I’ve never been out of Maryland.”

No doubt these things are cool, but tend to feel precious because of their price tag, despite their rugged intentions. Now a decent coat on the cheap? That, most people can get behind. Orvis offers the best options when it comes to gear that would fall under what some people call cool and at the same time, something that you can trash. They carry a good amount of Barbour but also offer a line of their own that gets little to no face time. Most of the items are under $250, which in comparison is cheap. Medium is as small as they go, so fashionistas clamoring for a slim cut can bug off to H&M. For inspiration on how not to look like a soccer dad when you wear these, just look at Tommy Ton’s winter photos. I’m sure you’ll find something.

Out of class and into the hall

Pat sat in the lecture hall staring at the off-white, or diseased white, ceiling tiles. The professor, yacking at the class, sallowed in the sickly glow of the florescent lighting. Class was seconds from over and the professor’s pant legs flopped everywhere unnaturally. If the professor had any sense or knowledge he would have had them tapered to 15”. Or at least 16”. 15” perhaps was a tad aggressive for a man of his girth. The man’s imperfection irritated Pat and Pat had the desire to never do a single problem that the professor assigned out of the textbook. Grades did not matter if your social knowledge was better than everyone else’s. Class dismissed and everyone filed out of the lecture hall except for Pat. The professor collected his things and scurried out the door to indulge in his fascination with tying fishing flies. Pat sat alone, lost in his ruminations of tapered legs, as he had the class after this in the same room.

Students slipped into the classroom, unaware that others were there, and began taking out their books. Comfortable in his chair, Pat slouched back and observed his sartorial superiority to the other boys in the class. In their defense, they didn’t have the knack; the know. The professor of this class was in the know. Tailored sportcoats and trousers abounded in his wardrobe. The man walked as though he had never known a tie from Sears. The professor strolled to the front of the class and set down his old leather briefcase, full of papers, which happened to be full of knowledge and full of nobility. Today, the professor had a button missing from the collar of his button down. Normally, this would be non-chalant, as if by accident. Y’know, natural. But something was wrong, something felt off with what the professor was wearing today. Acid rose in Pat’s throat. The lost button wasn’t natural at all. The whole thing was a sham. It was a huge horrible lie and Pat had fallen for it. He got up quickly and moved quickly towards the door of the lecture hall, using the desks to balance himself. Students looked surprised, as Pat usually carried himself without a care. With both hands, Pat pushed out of the door without the professor even noticing. He stumbled to the grey oversized trashcan in the hallway and retched over it. The coffee and Doritos he had eaten for breakfast came from his throat, around his teeth, and out his mouth. Pat heaved twice to get the remnants from sticking to his tongue and then breathed heavily as sweat collected on his brow. He heaved again trying to vomit out his own elitism but the beer he had drank before he went to bed was the only thing to come out. Perhaps the second professor was not natural at all. Maybe it was the first professor, with the wide pant legs and fly fishing fetish, that was the true natural person. Pat probably wouldn’t ever be able to find out. He still had the sickness, deep inside his gut.