Now that Hick is adding The Little Barbershop of Horrors as a sideline to my proposed handbasket factory, I feel like I need to step it up a notch. Can't let Hick have the newest business on the block. I'm leaning towards a halfway house for nerdy teenagers. Val's School For Boys Who Can't Dress Themselves and Don't Really Care About Helping People. Perhaps you can guess my inspiration.
This morning I hollered to ask The Pony if he wanted to wear shorts or pants. The temperature was below freezing. The Pony replied, "Don't really care. Whatever you want to lay out." Yes. I still lay out clothes for The Pony. You might think, perhaps, "Val! It's time to cut the apron strings!" Uh huh. But you thinkers are not the ones who are seen with The Pony on a daily basis.
Genius grew tired of my taste in clothing in middle school. By his freshman year, he was actively choosing his wardrobe during back-to-school shopping time. No Walmart fall-aparts for him. He was given a budget, and selected his gladrags online. As my mom and all the old people at church used to say, "Genius always looks so...neat."
Then we have The Pony. He would let me drape him in velvet and not give a hoot whether or not it was socially acceptable. He would wear clothes from a tourist who asked him to watch a suitcase and never came back. He would wear a woman's cashmere sweater with a red dot and not think twice about it. I daresay The Pony would wear a puffy shirt designed by a low-talker and not have the sense to object. He's the boy who fell off the monkey bars and hurt his butt on the first day of kindergarten, and was discovered to be wearing TWO pairs of underwear. "You laid out clean ones with my clothes this morning, and I put them on. You didn't say to take off the other ones."
This morning I chose a pair of khaki pants and a navy blue polo shirt. I laid them on the back of the couch, where I always lay his clothes, straight from a folded stack in the laundry room. I cut out the middle-man long ago. No need to carry those clothes to his room and put them in drawers, when I only have to go back in and select them for wearing.
I put the finishing touches on my shopping list while The Pony was dressing. We gathered a pint of day-old chili, four Entertainment Weeklys, and a job application to drop off at my mom's car on the church parking lot. No, she's not looking for a job. The application was for my nephew-in-law, who just got laid off from his job in the lead mine. We had a brief discussion of whether to leave the door locked or unlocked, since Hick was Gatoring about the grounds. The Pony passed me, loaded with his burden, as I looked in the dog house for my sweet, sweet Juno. Alas, she was no doubt burrowing through the burr field behind Hick, having a grand old time living a dog's life.
As I rounded the porch corner I saw it. The Pony's complete clothing selection for a morning at Walmart, with his mother, Val, who is a small-town celebrity, everybody seeming to recognize her on her jaunts, what with the 17 years and 1700 students whose lives she has touched. There he was, silhouetted against the white frost of half the front field. He had dutifully donned the khakis and navy blue polo. And on his feet, to complement this outfit, was a pair of Adidas black slides with white stripes. That is all. No socks. His toes wiggled in the wind chill.
"I can't believe you! That is NOT appropriate for Walmart." (Hoping he had never seen 'The People of Walmart' in all his computer-fiddling.)
"What? You always let me wear them!"
"Yes. With SHORTS. On days that the temperature is above freezing. Not today."
"Awwww...."
"Go back in."
"Okaaaay. I'll put on shoes!"
"AND SOCKS!" It never hurts to be too specific with The Pony.
So...yes, I still lay out The Pony's clothes. His sartorial sense is like Forrest Gump's momma's box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. I folded his clothes in matching ensembles for the three-week Missouri Scholars Academy this summer, and cringed to see him in pictures the week after he had to do laundry. His answer to that? "Mom. We ALL looked like that." And he was right.
Thus the need for Val's School For Boys Who Can't Dress Themselves and Don't Really Care About Helping People.
You're lucky you didn't have to deal with it in preschool like some of my students' mamas who battle daily over what their kids will/won't wear. My grandson wears shorts year round. He's a genius, too.
ReplyDeleteMy little boy once tucked his sweatshirt into his sweat pants. I told him Don't. Ever. Do. That. Again.
ReplyDeleteWhen The Pony goes to college, it will be an endless string of fashion faux pas--I hope you know that. Pajama bottoms to class--that's quite the norm.
Did you miss the fact that George would love to be draped in velvet?
ReplyDeleteNo socks? The boy needs help.
We need to send our son to Val's School for Boys Who Can't Dress Themselves, and our boy is thirty-five.
ReplyDeleteMy son (age 51) wears shorts whenever he's not working. He, however, showed up in long pants for our family's last 2 restaurant birthday celebrations. Should we consider that his new "birthday suit"?
ReplyDeleteAt my age, I've taken to wearing whatever nears my hand in the closet. That, as SWMBO has informed me when I'm about to leave the house, is usually not appropriate to be seen in public. Good thing I don't go out much.
ReplyDeleteLinda,
ReplyDeleteWe used to have a custodian who only wore shorts. I saw him at the Christmas program one year, snow swirling outside, watching his grandson, and I asked, "When is it too cold for shorts?"
He said, "It's never too cold for shorts." He must have been a genius, too, because every day after lunch he had students cleaning the cafeteria for him.
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Sioux,
As long as The Pony doesn't wear his pajama top, which he has had since 4th grade, and shows a considerable portion of belly. I made him leave it at home when he went to MSA this summer. He would probably have worn it as a shirt when it was time for laundry.
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joeh,
I'm pretty sure that's in the first sentence of my riff on Seinfeld clothing peccadilloes. At least The Pony doubled up on underwear, rather than letting his boys be out there. And he never turned a suede jacket inside out to show the pink and white striped lining. I might get him a puffy coat this winter, with the instructions to stay out of liquor stores with wine displays.
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Stephen,
OH! My first enrollee! I will give you half-off his tuition, because I think he probably DOES care about helping people.
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fishducky,
You can consider that his birthday suit, but never use those specific words when communicating with him. For example, do not say, "Oh, we're having a birthday party for Uncle Tooter down at the Cracker Barrel on Saturday. Be sure to wear your birthday suit!"
*****
Catalyst,
You can wear whatever you want if you go out alone, as long as your disguise is good enough that nobody associates you with SWMBO.
I DID stop Hick from going out with his overalls on backwards, even though he wasn't leaving our property. People drive by, you know, and I've gotta keep up appearances by maintaining Hick's appearance.
My bad, it was a Seinfeld smorgasbord and I missed most of it.
ReplyDeleteThat's okay. Maybe you were wearing those thick glasses you found in a box at the movie theater, just so you could let Lloyd Braun feel like he wasn't crazy. Enjoy your Chinese gum.
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