I can't imagine what I was thinking when I bought that dark blue and cyan striped shirt. It's just not me. The shirt obviously knew this before I did, and now broods on its hanger like Gesmas on his cross. The buttoned collar forming a deep and abiding frown; the cuffs aching to give me the finger if they could; even the washing instructions are seething.
Suffice it to say, the shirt undoubtedly believes it would be having a better time on someone else's shoulders. It is the sort of shirt you might wear while playing jazz piano at an after-hours nightclub; or you might roll the sleeves up when cooking beef bourguignon, taking occasional gulps from a glass filled with a variety of red wine that you always describe as "cheeky."
None of these things is my thing. Which is just as well, since I feel that it is the shirt of a popinjay; a womanising parvenu with bleached hair, cowboy boots and an earring. For some reason, the name Englebert Humperdink springs to mind, although I am sure that he is actually none of those things, either.
For some reason, the name Osama bin Laden springs to mind . Possibly I'm just sliding around on grassy-knoll doggy-dung,
but then I might indeed have espied the real reason for the Fed's decision to hide the post-mortem photos .
ObL always seemed a playboy manque, probably still carrying with him all the envious resentments of his youth, and never happy with his killer mullah gig .
The Navy Seals might have surprised him, there in his sad stone mansion, on one of his wacky haberdashery nights . Right ?
Posted by: PJKehoe | May 05, 2011 at 21:46
Except for the bleached hair Englebert Humperdinck might have fit the picture once.
I've recently taken to buying two or three varieties of the same sort once I've found one that I like, because next season some horrible color schemes or an inclination to put gargantuan logos on shirts might be in fashion, making it impossible to find even an acceptable one, let alone one I'd actually like.
Posted by: Laurent | May 06, 2011 at 16:19
Is Humperdinck still "is"? I don't want to date myself and tell when was it exactly when i played his records.
That description brings to mind someone else [name escapes me], a certain TV personality who, for some unfathomable reason travels the country, eats in every roadside greasy spoon and televises these rare events.
A shirt, however, would look fitting on one of my former bosses, an architect of over-middle-age, who once came to dress-down-Friday wearing pink (yes) jeans shirts, green bow tie and starched formal white shirt with cuff links.
Posted by: Tatyana | May 07, 2011 at 12:05
Tatyana, those jeans sound like "Nantucket reds" - de rigeur wear for anyone who went to a North East prep school and isn't ashamed of it.
Posted by: american fez | May 09, 2011 at 10:55
Hey - what's wrong with an earring and cowboy boots? A very fetching combo...
Posted by: Cowtown Pattie | May 09, 2011 at 21:16
Nothing, in their place, it's just that they look rather foolish on short men in the North East.
Posted by: american fez | May 10, 2011 at 09:58
S, I think he did (go to North East prep school)! That was quite a while ago, though, since he is close to 70, and after that school there was Cornell.
Thanks for solving that mystery for me.
Posted by: Tatyana | May 11, 2011 at 08:02