A man of style I am not

There is not one personality trait or characteristic about me that even hints at the tiniest microscopic particle of what can be described as style when it comes to clothes. After years of observation, it would seem that I suffer the same fate as the common moose, a creature said to be put together with spare parts from other animals and designed by a dysfunctional committee. I have never been one to be all that concerned with clothes to begin with but on the rare occasion where I am required to dress up the results are usually a disaster of comic proportions. To save what small sliver of dignity I possess I avoid the whole problem of clothes by staying with my tried and true attire of surfer t-shirts and cargo shorts during the summer and exchange those for blue jeans in the winter, which brings me to my first issue.

While many have commented over the years saying how much they think it is cool that I am so tall, I stand nearly six foot-six inches, I tell them try finding clothes that fit someone my height. Searching for something as simple as Wrangler blue jeans that meet my waist and length requirements can become an epic quest. Just recently I spent the better part of a Friday morning searching three different Walmarts, two Targets, and a really out of the way Kmart for jeans and coming up with a huge goose egg. Since in the best of times shopping for me can be compared to someone shoving bamboo sticks under my finger nails going to the huge corporate chains with policies that hurt their own workers and those of their suppliers make it even worse.

The problem is not that I am excessively fat along with tall; I found plenty of Wrangler jean waist sizes ranging up to forty-six inches. I am forced to assume that my thirty-eight waist and thirty-four length is either not produced that much or there are a bunch of tall goofy looking guys like me I just never see.

At each of my visits to the monolithic and uncaring corporate examples of American hyper-commercialism that day I tore through the blue jean stacks looking for my size. It must have been quite the sight because at each store I had frequents visits by the salesperson in charge of that particular area. They were all young ladies who seemed a combination of both curiosity and fear at someone making a mess of their area. On the other hand, if I was earning little better than minimum wage and dealing with spoiled Americans who generally believe all creation revolves around them I would not be very motivated to assist some giant troll-like creature tearing through piles of blue jeans. 

The problem was finally solved after I returned home and finally decided to order the jeans I needed over the internet. Once again, the corporate lackeys of Walmart under cut even the home website of Wrangler blue jeans itself on the price of their products by several dollars. How they did that boggles my mind but I am sure it is far from a good thing for the workers. Adding insult to injury, Walmart charges less than a dollar for shipping for even the smallest orders.

The second problem I have with clothes are the rare occasions whenever I have to formally dress up for some event. While it is difficult for me to buy jeans for everyday use finding a suit that fits me with all my oversized appendages requires a formal fitting that pushes the cost into a range reserved for those for more upwardly mobile than me.

Way back in 1993 when Dragonwife and I were dating, she was invited to the wedding of one of her college sorority sisters up in Washington DC. It was going to be one of those high-class shindigs and since I was also invited, we had to travel down to Charleston to one of the formal wear stores for men where I picked out a nice suit.

For an hour or two, I stood on a raised platform while a tailor made measurements on the pants and coat so he could adjust them to my height. At the time, I was still taking classes at the coastal community college where I got my ever-nifty associates degree from so I used a chunk of my GI bill to pay for the suit, which was cool since I wore that bad boy to my graduation.

For the most part I paid no attention to the little tailor dude who mumbled to himself as he used a chalk-like substance to make reference marks on first the pants then the coat. After the fact, I realized the twit had made some backhanded comments about my long legs and what I admit are gorilla-like arms. I have no idea why I rubbed the little fellow the wrong way but he was damn good at how he adjusted the suit. Not only did it fit perfectly giving me an unheard of sense of professional style, over the intervening years I was able to let both the pants and the coat out as I expanded laterally.

It was not until last year right before the Disney cruise that I had finally exhausted the suit’s ability to compensate for my physical expansion. Since two evenings on the Disney Magic would be formal dinner nights, I had to scramble for something to take its place. In a honesty I simply did not have the funds or desire to try and buy a new suit so I settled on just purchasing a basic sports coat.

That proved problematic, all my odd lengths and widths made buying a modest sports coat a huge pain. At one place a blazer that fitted me perfectly cost four-hundred dollars, which on the Disney cruise was a couple of nights of drinking at a bar so I gave the jacket back to the salesman and walked out laughing. Eventually I found a cheap black sports coat at a big and tall shop that even had a piecemeal service so it could be somewhat adjusted to my arms and torso.

We picked up the jacket a week before the cruise and it was a total disaster. Standing in front of the full-length mirror at the store the coat looked like something I might have borrowed from television’s Herman Munster. It fit so badly I actually felt mentally and physically uncomfortable. For the most part I do not care what people think about me but more often than not the first question a new person usually asks after seeing how tall I am is do I play basketball. When I answer with my noticeable Southern drawl "not since high school" I am usually classified along the lines of the fictional Forrest Gump. As false stereotypes go it is not the worst someone can be labeled with but it is still irritating and something I would rather avoid.

Looking in the mirror and seeing how that awkward sports coat seemed to be draped over my shoulders the cliches about "clothes making the man" and "you never get another chance at making a first impression echoed inside my head. As much as I wanted to have it correctly tailored, we did not have time so I just stuffed it into a garment bag and tried to forgot about it.

The cruise, as expected, was a fantastic trip where there were so many activities my family hardly knew if we were coming or going. Some nights we stumbled into our cabin so exhausted we collapsed on our beds and were asleep in mere minutes.We were so caught up in all the events I totally forgot about the ill-fitting jacket and when the formal nights came I donned it without caring how it looked.

On the cruise professional photographers constantly roam the ship taking pictures of the passengers having fun and on formal nights somehow there are even more. So, Dragonwife, Darth Wiggles, and myself had our pictures taken many times on both of the nights I had to wear the jacket. I realized that my sports coat looked like crap but by then I was resigned to the fact.

Making matters worse Dragonwife was able to make reservations at the very formal and adults only restaurant on the Disney Magic named “Palo”. Both Dragonwife and I ate at the swanky Palo’s on previous Disney cruises so I was familiar with how all the other patrons would look, of course back then I still had my trusty well tailored suit. At least I had the ability to take off the new sports coat once we are at our table. I just wish I had taken a closer look at the jacket before we left our cabin during the nights I wore the thing.

While sorting through boxes of pictures Dragonwife found the professional photos taken during the cruise last year. Wanting to relive the memories I soon joined her on the family room floor and began cringing at the site of me wearing the sports coat. On several of the pictures I had my arm around Dragonwife, a couple of Disney princess, and another with Captain Jack Sparrow I hope no one asks about nor will I openly discuss. On each of those pictures, I saw a tag dangling on the underside of the left sleeve of the cheap and accursed blazer.

Like I said at the first, I realize I will never be a stylish person but I am truly okay with that, it is just I do not want to embarrass myself anymore than I have to. Something about that tag hanging down about two inches from my sleeve just screamed illiterate country bumpkin/redneck far more than I am comfortable. Sure enough, I went downstairs and dug the coat out of my closet and there was the tag still attached. Somehow, before the next formal occasion I will cough up the money to get that damn thing fitted.