Things That Burn My Biscuits: Business Attire Edition

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a fan of dressing up in business attire. ­I guess I don’t mind for special occasions like church services, weddings, or probation meetings, but on a typical day I just don’t see the point. I work in a tiny cubicle in a tiny office, and only a handful of people see me each day, none of which are customers. As a marketing professional, I sit quietly at my desk and market things/write silly blogs, so why am I dressed like a bar mitzvah is about to break out?

If it were up to me I would wear jeans and a t-shirt every day of my life, because having to wear business attire is a terrible crime against comfort the likes of which The Mongols would have enforced if it weren't easier to just burn entire cities. The reasons for this are many-fold, and I am about to go into excruciating detail. And while I’m typing this I am currently wearing slacks, a collared shirt, and a tie, so I can guarantee that my trivial rage will be fresh. These burned biscuits are straight from the oven. Enjoy!

The Pants

Dress pants come in a variety of shapes, colors, and materials, but they all have one thing in common – they were tailored by the devil to maximize discomfort. The waist bands of most slacks were designed to rest on top of your hips, if your hips started somewhere in the middle of your sternum. Adding to the discomfort is the fact that you are required, by society, to tuck two shirts (under and outer) into this waistband. And then you’ve still got your underwear all up in the mix. You know how a butterfly flapping its wings is said to cause a hurricane somewhere on the other side of the world? Well now that all of your main articles of clothing converge at your pants’ waist band, moving your arms can create a ripple effect resulting in a wedgie in your southern hemisphere.

And then there are the pockets. Ninety-seven percent of all dress pant pocket openings are cut diagonally at an angle carefully measured by Beelzebub to evacuate all your belongings as soon as you sit down. Because if there’s one thing Ol’ Scratch delights in, it's making you lose your quarters for the Coke machine.

  

 “WHERE ARE MY QUARTERS??!!….

There. Will. Be. Blood!”

The Tie

Wearing a tie is much like being constantly strangled by a little old lady with arthritis. It won’t restrict your breathing, but you’ll certainly notice it.

“Funny…I don’t remember putting a tie on this morning…”

If a golden formula for tying a tie the correct length exists, I am not privy to it. I’d say on average it takes me 1,713 attempts before the small strand does not exceed the big strand, or the big strand does not exceed my knees. On the rare occasion that I get it right on the first try, the heavens part, a single ray of sunlight shines directly on my chest, and a choir of angels sing Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus. That’s when I know it’s going to be a good day.

  

The Socks and Shoes

Dress socks come up comically high on your leg, which I guess they have to, because many dress pant legs recede like the tide before a tsunami when you sit down. If the socks came up any higher, they would have to be reclassified as panty hose. At best, when I wear them, I feel like a kid at an early 80’s summer camp.

The marketing firm of Finkelstein & Nehisock

Dress shoes come in two different comfort categories – Vietnamese Rice Field Sandals and Dutch Wooden Clogs. And for the women there’s Chinese Foot Binding. I wore slip-on street shoes to work the other day, because I ran out of black dress socks and wearing white ankle socks would have looked ridiculous, and it felt like I was walking on clouds. There was just something about wearing comfortable shoes out of context that made it feel so much better. Of course my boss immediately noticed, because he notices if I don’t shave or if there is a wrinkle in my shirt (there is always a wrinkle in my shirt). But for that one day, I felt like Mr. Rogers would have felt had he ever put on his Keds before going to work.

"9 a.m and I'm wearing tennis shoes? I'm feeling saucy!"

Bonus Gripe: Casual Day

Bosses know good and well that their employees hate dressing up for work every day, and they exploit it by offering casual days as a prize for superb performance (this does not include my boss, who wouldn't offer a casual day if I lost my clothes in a fire). It just feels like being a little kid and receiving a gold star. It’s so patronizing. But don’t get me wrong – I would still throw you under a metaphorical and physical bus if I thought it would result in me being able to wear a t-shirt to work. I just don’t like comfort being harnessed as a weapon, or, as the boss sees it, being used as a motivator. “Congratulations! You have earned the right to be comfortable!” Gee. Thanks. Prisoners may lead a rough life, but you can’t argue that at least their wardrobe looks comfy.

“I killed my co-worker when I lost my soda quarters.

And then I was sentenced to 20 years of casual Fridays.”

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So now that you've read 900 words of me complaining, let me say that I, of course, am grateful to have a job, and that I know it could be much, much worse. I realize some dress standards have to be present, or else the office would descend into a stained-pajama-and-inappropriate-slogan-shirt fiasco. But if I can't vent my pathetic and frivolous frustrations to the internet, who can I turn to? So thanks, Internet, for being an attentive ear. Let me return the favor by stating your least favorite dress code in the comments. Let it out, Internet. Let it out.

For more steaming piles of insignificant vitriol, read The Holiday Edition and the Public Bathroom Edition.

The Dark Nate Rises

This is the thrilling conclusion to the epic Unemployed Superhero trilogy. You can read Natman Begins here, and The Dark Nate here.

“Birmingham doesn't need you any more, Nate.” I groggily awaken and raise my head to meet inches from Mr. Toodles' beady, dead eyes. I'm not sure why all my sanity breaks involve him, but I've come to consider the plush bugger as a sidekick. “And why are you only wearing underpants and a bedsheet tied around your neck?”

“I don't know, Mr. Toodles. Why are you a talking Pillow Pet? The world is full of questions.”

“For the last time, Mr. Toodles. My name isn't Nate! It's Natman. And it's not a bedsheet! It's a fancy tablecloth.” Mr. Toodles' gaze is unmoving. “Look, you know I can't afford a real superhero costume.” I'm standing up now, with Mr. Toodles at an unfortunate underpants level as I continue. “Have you seen the price per yard on flame-retardant polyurethane silk blends? You can't just buy that stuff in the fabric section of Wal-Mart.”

“That's what I'm trying to tell you!” Mr. Toodles' thick British accent always makes him sound huffy. “You're not a 'super hero' anymore.” I notice he did some odd motion with his stubby little flippers while he spoke.

“Air quotes, Mr. Toodles? How chaaaahmin'.” I do my best to mimic Mr. Toodles' accent, but it comes out sounding Jamaican. I realize that all my fake accents sound Jamaican, and I start practicing the word 'charming' over and over under my breath. Mr. Toodles sighs deeply, but obliges. Several minutes pass.

“Still Jamaican,” he huffs. “And now, let's get back to the matter at hand.” I stare quizzically at Mr. Toodles. “You know....” he continues, “the fact that you're not unemployed anymore, and that you've moved to a new state?” I cradle my chin with my index finger and thumb to accentuate that I am in deep thought. “I am in deep thought,” I proclaim to further accentuate that I am in deep thought. I'm not sure Mr. Toodles was getting the picture here, and I really wanted to drive that point home.

“Focus, Nathan!” he shouts as he slaps me across the face with his stuffed flipper. It feels like a breeze caressing me with clouds, but I play nice and throw my head in the direction of his aggression. Mr. Toodles is very sensitive about his cuddliness. “You've moved all your belongings and left most of your friends to work as a marketing manager at a realty group in Atlanta! In fact, you've been in Atlanta for about two months now!”

Stunned, I look around the room and realize that I am not in my Birmingham apartment. I sink onto the bed next to Mr. Toodles, and he unlatches himself and sprawls onto his back. I accept his offer and rest my head on his cottony stomach as I try to piece everything together. “Bu- but why would I do that? Birmingham is all I've known the past eight years. Who will be her protector? Who will slink in the shadows and impede the progress of villainy?”

“Birmingham doesn't need an unemployed lunatic running around in uncomfortably short underpants,” Mr. Toodles asserts.

“Oh, no they are quite comfortable,” I retort. “They're very thin, so they really breathe.”

“That's not what I meant!” Mr. Toodles is growing more agitated, only serving to make him look more adorable. I work very hard not to reach out and and gently stroke his head. “Nate,” he continues, “you left Birmingham because you needed something different. And now you have your own apartment and a new job. You wanted change and you found it!”

I sit up and face Mr. Toodles again, still confused. “That doesn't sound like me. I hate change! One time a homeless man came up to me on the street and asked me for change, and just hearing the word caused me to curl up in the fetal position and start crying.”

“Yes, I remember that,” Mr. Toodles sighed. “He felt so bad for you he gave you a dollar.”

“So why, then, did I abandon Birmingham? The city needs me!”

Mr. Toodles latches himself back up, and I can tell he is choosing his words carefully. I impatiently wait for his answer. “Because...” his dark eyes flit around the room nervously until, suddenly, his face lights up. “Because your old roommate, Zach, has taken up your mantle as the city's protector!”

“You mean Zobin the Bearded Wonder!?” I exclaim like a little girl on Christmas morning.

Mr. Toodles sighs. He sure does sigh a lot when we talk. “Yes, Zach- I mean, Zobin is keeping a watchful eye on the city so that you can be a productive citizen of Atlanta by holding a full-time job that requires you to wear pants.”

I excitedly stand and pace the room, finally connecting all the dots and remembering my path to Atlanta. I spill out into the parking lot and see that I am in the shadows of highrises as the bustle of city traffic fills my ears. Mr. Toodles waddles outside and stops at my feet. “This is great, Mr. Toodles!” I shout, ignoring the horrified stares of my neighbors.

“Now you've got it!” he replies. “Now you're back on track!”

“Yes,” I agree. “A new city and a new life. There's lots of exploring to do, Toodles ol' pal!” He looks up at me, his eyes squinting and the corners of his beak ever so slightly fading downward as if he was waiting for another sentence. “And lots of villains to catch!” I finish.

“Nate, you've missed the point!” It's too late. I've taken off running down the street with my cape flapping in the wind, undulating like a wave of justice. “You're going to miss work!” he yells desperately.

I pretend I can't hear him. “I can't hear you saying I'll miss work!” My words echo as I duck down a back alley and run straight into a homeless man scrounging through a dumpster. His wrinkled face sours as he looks me over. "Oh, don't worry. I was just talking to my Pillow Pet. He wants me to go to work today, but clearly I have more important things to do." The man silently hands me a dollar and pats me on the shoulder before taking a bite out of a discarded, moldy bagel.

Some things will never change.

Atlanta. She is my city, and I her protector.

The Forgotten 90's

Today we are going to take a test. Everyone please pull out a sheet of paper from your crazy Trapper Keeper with 3D shapes if you are a boy, or your Lisa Frank unicorn folder if you are a girl. Also, please only use a number 2 sharpened Yikes! pencil. Now, let's begin...

Trick question! The test is already over. If you read the above paragraph and had no idea what I was talking about, you were not a child of the 90's, and you have failed. But that's okay. Not everyone was meant to be raised in history's most glorious era.

Glory.

I read an article a while back that got me thinking about all the pop culture from the 90's that often gets looked over or forgotten today. Some things have staying power, and some things just don't. My perception of 90's pop culture is admittedly skewed, since I was but a wee lad during most of the decade. For instance, I was bewildered when I learned as an adult that the 1994 movie Little Big League was a box office bomb, because when 8-year-old-me went to see it in theaters with my dad it felt like a big deal. It could have been Star Wars for all I knew, because I didn't have the full cognizance to understand it's impact outside of my small group of baseball-loving 3^rd grade friends. So here are a few things I think back on from the 90's and go “Hey, remember that?” to which the collective seems to reply, “No, not really.”

Crossfire

I wanted this board game so badly as a kid, thanks in large part to this commercial which played between every early 90's Nickelodeon show. I dare you to watch it without weeping at the realization that your life will never be as cool as the kid's in the leather jacket. (I am prepared to triple dog dare you, but I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that.)

If you were too scared or unable (scared) to watch the commercial, it features two kids gliding on hoverboards into a futuristic arena filled with cheering crowds and lightning for a deathmatch while Kenny Freakin' Loggins or a Kenny Freakin' Loggins impersonator wails “Crossfiiiyyyaaaaaaahh!” The actual board game consists of shooting ball bearings at a cog to move it into your opponent's goal, but really the game could have been anything. It could have been a brick you smash your own face with and I still would've begged my parents for it. “Mom, can we please go to the store and get the game where I smash my own face with a brick? Have you even seeeeeen the commercial?”

I have never stumbled upon this game at any thrift store, which means they either didn't sell many copies of it originally (but really, go watch that commercial again) or, the more probable answer, all the ball bearings were immediately lost the same day the game was purchased by begrudging parents and given to their hyper-active and careless kids. Because, looking back with all the acuity of an adult, that's exactly what I would have done.

Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute

Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute (not to be confused with Zandar, Master of That Thing Where You Thump Your Cheeks While You Open Your Mouth) sold his inspirational rendition of classic melodies on vinyl, cassette, or compact disc through commercials which ran at all hours of the day on every channel broadcast in America for what felt like twenty years during the 90's. There was no escaping these commercials. Even as a kid I was sick of them, and I had an incredibly high tolerance for crap back then. The US has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists, but I imagine President Clinton finally gave Zamfir a few million dollars and told him to move to Canada and never return, because I have not heard a single note from Zamfir's pan flute in many years. But wherever Zamfir is today, probably in some small, icy town like Sasquatchatoon or Moose Butt, he can take solace in knowing that at least one man bought his albums – my father.

Wish Kid/ProStars

Saturday Morning Cartoons reached their Golden Age in the 90's. Everybody remembers the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tiny Toon Adventures, and Garfield (my personal favorite), but for the longest time I had slight recollections of a cartoon where Macaulay Culkin would slap his baseball mitt three times to make Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, and Bo Jackson magically appear and save the day with their athletic skill and ingenuity. I brought this cartoon up a few times to people in my general age group, and all I ever got was blank faces and the usual questions as to who I was, how I got into their office building, and why I had interrupted their meeting with trivial nonsense.

“But before security gets here, seriously no one remembers? Culkin? Jordan?...”

It turns out I had remembered it incorrectly. I finally did the internet research, and in my head I had combined two cartoons into one. Wish Kid was the cartoon that starred Culkin as a kid that got wishes from his magical glove, and ProStars was the cartoon that had Jordan, Gretzky, and Jackson battling crime with comically inefficient sports equipment. Both series began in 1991, and both only lasted 13 episodes. I think now is the right timing for gritty live-action reboots starring Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Brett Favre, and Haggard Macaulay Culkin to be aired on HBO long after your children have gone to sleep.

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So what do you remember from the 90's that others have largely forgotten? What didn't quite stick in America's nostalgic mind the way you thought it should have?  These things must be documented. We can't afford to forget the things that subtly shaped us or we risk losing sight of who we were and who we wanted to become.

This kid is the only reason I want to be successful in life.

.....

I'll show him.

Tubular (Limestone Park Canoe and Tube Rentals)

I've decided that I'm going to be an Olympian.

“But Nathan,” you're probably saying to yourself under your breath, “there isn't an Olympic sport that suits your failing joints and outright contempt for practice or dedication.”

“Shut your face!” I am definitely yelling to a random, confused person who happens to be standing nearest me as you read this. “I know that, and I'm petitioning the International Olympic Committee for the inclusion of a new sport more tailored to my unique lack-of-talents and apathy!”

I, of course, am yelling about the “sport” of tubing, or sitting on an inflatable device and letting the current take you wherever the current wants. It combines two of my favorite things – being abhorrently lazy and floating while being abhorrently lazy. I'm not really sure how a winner would be chosen, since making it into a race would defeat the essence of the sport, so maybe there will be style judges like in ice skating.

"Just look at those slouched shoulders, slack jaw, and vacant stare. The judges have deliberated. Tens across the board!"

I went for a tubing test run last weekend. Meredith and I had been looking for a new place to try, and I had heard about Limestone Park Canoe and Tube Rentals near Montevallo. A quick internet search revealed that they did not have a website, which should have tipped us off. After a drive deep into the boonies of Bibb County, we found that Limestone Park is not a state or city funded leisure refuge as I had assumed, but some guy's land with several dozen freight truck tire tubes. The office looks like an outhouse, and the man in charge seemed less than thrilled to be dealing with city slickers. Limestone Park Canoe and Tube Rentals is a decidedly small and amusingly Southern operation, and it is my hope that by typing Limestone Park Canoe and Tube Rentals enough in this blog that I will be the first search engine result so that I can demand the owners give me a kickback in exchange for a favorable review. BWAHAHAHAHA! (Limestone Park Canoe and Tube Rentals)

We met up with Janna and Canella, picked our tubes, and hopped in the back of the "shuttle" to head upriver.

"Don't worry. We've wrecked the shuttle twice, but only one of those resulted in any customer deaths."

After a short ride through some pastures, we climbed out of the shuttle and down the river embankment. We cast our tubes into the cool water, but I was literally confused as to which direction was downriver. There was no current to speak of, and if we had not started paddling we would still be at the launch site having Deliverance nightmares.

Despite having to paddle, it was a fun trip. It was over 100 degrees that day, so the water was relaxing as we floated and talked. The smooth stretch of river was broken up by five sets of rapids that were actually drops just big enough to hurl you butt-first into rocks. I found that the best way to tackle these rapids was to straighten out perfectly flat, what I like to call the "Emery Board Sitting on a Donut Method". Every true Olympian has their signature technique I suppose.

The river led us past scenic Alabama backwoods, beautiful rising bluffs, and 1,000 Coors Light cans. There are signs all over the place about not bringing alcohol on the trip, but clearly many people have disregarded these signs, and in a show of defiance have discarded their empty cans onto low hanging limbs so that a couple of trees look like it naturally bears blissful alcoholic fruit that shines in the sun. The river also led us through some cow farms, the stench of which hits our nostrils like a methane orchestra. The animals all seemed indifferent to our presence, though.

"You realize you're floating in my toilet right now, don't you?"

It took almost three hours to reach our cars. It would've taken an Ivy League rowing team to complete the trip in the operator's estimated two hours, but maybe the river was just unusually slow that day. Wanting to cap off our Southern adventure with a delicious Southern meal, I suggested we have lunch at a random dive restaurant in a nearby town. We turned to Yelp, found some place called Tin Top, and decided that with a name like that it would probably not be fine dining.

We were not disappointed.

The cashier at Tin Top was kind of surly. She was also the cook, and there was a line, so I can see where her frustrations would come from. After taking an order, she would grab a hunk of meat and hack at it wildly with a cleaver, like an angry Swedish Chef or a normal Jeffrey Dahmer. The food, unfortunately, was not delicious. The chopped pork I ordered was all connected by a system of fat, so that when I picked up one small piece of meat the entire sandwich followed in a glob.

Basically I had a rat king sandwich.

We made the hour drive home, and I immediately took a shower to wash the Cahaba River off of me and then fell asleep. It may seem like I've been complaining in this post, but really I had a great day. I enjoy Alabama's nuances, and it was nice to get out into nature and spend time with friends. Also, it was good experience for my new goal in life. After all, the Chinese aren't going to beat themselves.

 The US Olympic Tubing Team - Rio de Jeneiro 2016

(Limestone Park Canoe and Tube Rentals)