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The Genetic Curse
Written by Rick Archer in
1998
Last update: 2007
Humorist and occasional fashion
consultant Dave Barry
once wrote a fascinating article on ugly clothes. One of
his key paragraphs is reprinted here.
"Men are
genetically programmed to select ugly clothing.
This phenomenon dates back millions of years. Primitive
tribal men responsible for defending their territory would
deck themselves out in face paint, animal heads and nose
bones. This allowed them to look really hideous and scare
off threatening enemy tribes.
If prehistoric tribal warriors had somehow gotten hold of
modern golf clothing, they
would surely have ruled the rain forest."
Mr. Barry postulated that men who were
drawn to hideous clothing were more
likely to survive than men with good taste in clothing.
Ugly clothes guaranteed
that bad guys and predators would take
one look, then turn
to flee in terror.
Mr. Barry also said
possession of modern golf clothing
during the Caveman Era would have guaranteed certain control of the
Rain Forest.
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According to Barry, Golf Clothing is so
frightening it would surely subdue humans into
submission and likely ward off
dinosaurs as well.
Once rid of all their enemies, the men with the hideous
clothing would be seen as great and mighty warriors. This
power would make them highly attractive as mating partners. They
would have their choice of many attractive women with whom to mate.
This explains why today there are so men who possess the worst taste
in clothing imaginable.
The weakness in this theory is what woman would allow a guy
wearing these kind of clothes anywhere near enough to mate?
Barry developed a second theory that any woman who could turn a blind eye
to ugly clothing would increase her chances of mating dramatically.
Now that I believe!
As you can see, this interjection of Repulsive Golf Clothing Theory into
Darwinian Survival of the Fittest Principles bears
further research. It may help us finally understand why so much ugly
clothing exists in modern society.
On a personal note, little did I
know that one day I would be
given a chance to
test Mr. Barry's theory
about the power of hideous golf clothing first-hand.
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1963 - THE EARLY DAYS OF THE GENETIC
CURSE
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We start this story back
when I was 13. For nine years I went to a posh private school
here in Houston, Texas, known as Saint John's
School. This college prep school
was attended by the sons and daughter of the wealthiest families in
Houston. Meanwhile I was without a doubt the
poorest kid in the whole school. Through a very unusual set of
circumstances my mother had somehow managed to finagle a full scholarship
for me.
Just to put things into perspective, my mother was so poor that I had to
get a job after school just to get by.
Although the education I received was the finest imaginable,
I always felt like a stranger in a strange land. My broken home
contributed to my sense of alienation. My mother had so many
problems of her own, she was unable to teach me even the most basic
fundamentals of social grace.
Not surprisingly, my lack of
social polish occasionally got me into serious trouble with my
more sophisticated classmates.
The area of clothing in particular was a real sore spot. Even
though we all wore the same uniform, the difference in quality was obvious.
This fact
that was not lost on me nor my classmates. I was teased once in a
while about my clothes, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle.
That is, of course, until the fateful trip to Oklahoma in the ninth
grade (1963). That was the day when I was finally put in my place once
and for all.
The football team was taking a bus trip to Oklahoma City to play Casady,
one of our biggest rivals. I was 13.
I was the statistician for the football team. Although I wanted to
play football, I had only one eye. The coaches feared that I might be
blind-sided and badly hurt. So I was not allowed to play. Since I still wanted to
contribute, I offered to keep track of the football statistics.
This was a job I held for
all four years in high school.
On that fateful day, I was the last person to get on the bus for trip
to Casady.
Everyone else was already seated and pumped up. They were raring to go!
As I began my solitary stroll down the aisle,
I was wearing black
pants, black shoes, and WHITE SOCKS!!
Sadly no one had ever bothered to explain to me
the basic facts of color coordination (which explains my
modern obsession with this important
concept in dance class).
Gary Glesby (aka the biggest mouth in school) spotted me as I walked down the
aisle in search of an empty seat. Roaring with derisive laughter, he
pointed out my mistake to every boy on the bus.
Now the whole pack jeered as one. To make matters worse, Gary dedicated the remainder of
the trip to my public humiliation. And it was a LONG TRIP.
Any time the conversation lagged, Gary would return to me for
inspiration.
Yes, I sat in the back, but the boys had a good memory and knew where to
find me. For lack of anything better to do, the teasing and
humiliation of Mr. White Socks continued periodically all the way for
400 miles. Teenage boys can be pretty rough sometimes.
As my gut knotted up, the trip felt like a passage from Lord of
the Flies, the book we
were reading at the time... "Kill the pig, Cut her throat, Spill her
blood, Bash her in!"
The rhythmic chanting of "White Socks, Dumb Ox"
wasn't exactly "Kill the Pig", but it still irritated the bejeesus out
of me. I told them to knock it off, so they did. But the
damage was done. I fumed all the way to Oklahoma.
Little did I imagine that someday it could get worse. But
one day did.
1988 - ME AND MY BIG MOUTH
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Fast Forward 25 years. It is now
1988. Mr. White Socks is now 38.
I am still not quite the sharp-dressed man, but at least
somewhat more aware of the
rules. I am definitely making progress.
One day while I was cleaning the dance
studio a student named Angelica Frias showed up very early for
her dance class. She was about an hour ahead of
time. Angelica apologized for being so early and asked if I minded
if she just sat and relaxed. Of course not.
Make yourself comfortable.
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I might as well tell the truth. I had a
crush on Angelica. Angelica was a tall, slender woman of
Latin background. She was older than me. Angelica
had a special dignity about her. She seemed incredibly
perceptive. I assumed she was out of my league, but that
didn't stop me from checking her out.
I was pleased to have some company while
doing my chores, especially this elegant, attractive
woman. We began to chat.
That is when I discovered that Angelica was
a psychiatrist. At the mention of her profession,
I was
immediately taken aback. Oh well. Now I
was positive I was no match for her.
Nevertheless, it would be nice to make a
friend. Besides, I was curious about
her work. Not only had I majored in Psychology in college,
but
I did a year of graduate work in Clinical
Psychology back in
1973.
Unfortunately, this particular
adventure didn't work out very well.
In fact, this year of graduate school was the biggest failure of my life. I
had received a devastating blow when I
was told by my professors that I didn't have the
'right personality' to be a therapist.
They thought I was too aggressive to be a good listener.
So I was sent packing. That particular
failure was especially painful, but on the bright side it did
lead to my eventual career with the dance studio. (Read
the Story)
As I listened to Angelica talk about her practice, I felt a wave of
recrimination
course through my veins. Here was a
woman who had succeeded in an area where I had failed. Lucky her,
Unlucky me. The ancient bitterness came back to haunt me as I listened to her story.
However, just because I was a failed grad student didn't mean
I wasn't interested in learning what
Angelica thought about her
profession. In fact, she seemed pleased to see I
knew more than the average guy about psychotherapy. Once
Angelica realized I had been a psychology graduate student, she encouraged me
to talk about my memories.
Like a moron, I immediately started to
babble. Eager to demonstrate at least
a modicum of intellect, I name-dropped Freud,
Maslow, Jung, and Dr. Ruth to prove it. You
know what was really going on... I was trying to impress her.
Why lie about it?
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The big question is why on earth she
encouraged me. That actually got my hopes up. Silly
silly me.
I don't know what came over me. Angelica wasn't just a therapist,
she was a psychiatrist. She was a DOCTOR! Her
education and training was
light years greater than my one crummy little year of grad school.
I was totally out of my league. Honestly, I should have kept my mouth shut, but, oh no, stupid me, I had to engage
her on her turf.
As our conversation developed I asked her who had been important in
forming her ideas about family dynamics. Angelica replied that Murray Bowen with his theories about
family triads (triangles) had been an enormous influence on her thinking.
I frowned
because I had never heard of this guy.
Who's Murray Bowen? I politely asked her to explain a little bit about his ideas.
Big Mistake!
Dr. Frias
immediately offered to let me read a famous article of his.
I naively
agreed to do so. After all, it was the polite
thing to do. I figured she would forget all about
the conversation before her next visit
to the studio. And even if she really was serious, why not?
After all, I can read. What's there to worry
about??
Fools jump in where wise men never go.
I said, "Sure, I would like to
read his article."
Just
like that, the jaws of the trap were set in motion.
At that moment, I had a sixth sense warning that there was something
wrong here. I could not put my finger on it, but the moment I opened my mouth, a sense of dread took over me.
To this day I
don't know how I knew this would be trouble, but I just KNEW.
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However it was too late now. Before I
could say another word to change the subject, Angelica said she would be right back. She went to her car, brought back a copy
of the article,
handed it to me and asked me to read it. Angelica smiled and said she
would like to know what I thought about it. Before I could say a
word, Angelica then looked me in the eye and politely invited me to lunch sometime
later in the week to discuss my opinion of this treatise.
Well, what would you do in this
situation? Squirm like a fish? Dodge like a mongoose?
Slither away like a snake? Why not say something clever like 'No thank you,
Angelica, my instincts tell me
this is definitely not a good idea'!
Of course not. I got myself into
this. So, despite great misgivings, I politely accepted her invitation.
At this point other students began to show up
so the conversation ended there.
As I finished straightening out the studio, I thought to myself
about why
was I so worried. What's the risk here? Like I said, I kept
reminding myself that I can read. Or at
least I thought I could. Why did I feel so intimidated?
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It wasn't till later that night that I
realized just how much trouble I was in. There alone in
the sanctity of my home I tried to read the article.
Omigod.
From the
very first sentence, I KNEW I was in big trouble. I cannot honestly recall another time
in my adult life I have EVER felt more stupid and more
illiterate. I am not exaggerating. This was very
difficult reading.
Maladaptive psychoneurotic triadic dysfunction, transient situational
adjustment reaction, ego mass diffusion, motoric inhibition of ideational functioning.
I copied these phrases directly from the article to
give the reader an idea what I was up against. The article was only
60
pages long, but it felt like the Iliad & the
Odyssey written in ancient Greek.
Does this thing have Cliff Notes? Is there an English translation
for morons? What have I gotten myself into?
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(2007 Side Note: This event with Dr Frias took place in
1988, long before the Internet came along. When I reviewed
this story in 2007, just for the heck of it, I looked up 'Murray
Bowen' on the Internet to refresh my memory. This passage is
an excellent example. See what you can make of it.
"The goal of
Extended Family Systems Therapy is to increase the individual
family member's level of differentiation.
Bowen postulated that severe problems within the family unit
stem from a multigenerational transmission process whereby
levels of differentiation among family members can become
progressively lower from one generation to the next. He
developed an extended family systems therapy with the goal to
increase the level of differentiation among the individual
family members. Using the family projection process as well as
the differentiation of Self, the individual can create Triangles
within the nuclear family emotional system to avoid emotional
cutoff. Differentiation of Self refers to one's ability to
separate one's own intellectual and emotional functioning from
that of the family. Bowen spoke of people functioning on a
single continuum or scale. Individuals with "low
differentiation" are more likely to become fused with
predominant family emotions. A related concept is that of an
undifferentiated ego mass, which is a term used to describe a
family unit whose members possess low differentiation and are
therefore emotionally fused.
"
Guess what?
Bowen's entire article
read
like that. I found it utterly incomprehensible.)
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As I read the article during the night, I became
increasing aware that the reading wasn't getting any easier. I was
completely unable to
decipher the text. It obviously had not been written for a general
audience, but rather for readers at the upper strata of the profession.
This treatise used technical terms that only the elite would be able to
comprehend. No matter how many times I thumbed through my
dictionary,
I was fighting a losing battle against a technical vocabulary that was foreign to me. Maybe if I had stayed in the "Biz" and stayed familiar with the jargon I
might have had more success, but for the moment I felt thoroughly whipped.
As I sensed the trouble I was in, nausea swept through my body.
I was angry at my helplessness. I was
38 years old, but I had behaved like a silly boy. I had tried too
hard to impress a beautiful woman. Now look what I had gotten
myself into. It seemed to be I
had quite likely set myself up for some acute embarrassment in the
presence of the elegant Dr. Frias.
Bravely I
continued reading, but the further I got the more I realized the
hopelessness of my plight. I panicked and flipped
the pages looking for an easy part. No luck. It was all Greek to me.
Mind you,
I don't consider myself to be a stupid guy. I have always excelled at
academics. I graduated fifth in my high school class
at the toughest high school in Houston. I graduated with honors
from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, a school that
carries the same academic prestige as Houston's Rice University.
In addition, I received a
full scholarship to graduate school.
I had always been near the top of my class in
anything academic and up till now I had always believed
I was a smart guy. However at this moment, in a blinding
Peter Principle realization, I
realized I had taken on a challenge well above my level of competence.
This article had shown me there was an intellectual
world out there way past my comprehension. In other words, I had
bitten off more than I could chew.
Finally I made a coward's decision - I
would simply try to grasp enough to BS my way through lunch.
I didn't see any other way out. My plan was to drop a few catch phrases here and there,
then fall back on the ancient art of posing one question after
another.
With any luck at all, maybe I could change the subject
to something closer to my point on the Bell Curve like local
sports or MTV.
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So I began to look for important passages to
underline. Even this wasn't going to be easy. I didn't know where the
important ideas were hidden in the first place! So I simply underlined the few passages I
could understand.
Two days later I
finished slogging through the article with great difficulty.
It may have been just 60 pages, but at my snail's pace
rate, a thousand page copy of Atlas Shrugged would have been a faster read.
My
fingers were practically bleeding from looking up one word after
another in the dictionary. I
estimate I looked up more words in two days than in my entire
college career.
Now I
just wanted to get this over with.
I decided I
had understood enough to fake my way through lunch.
So I called Angelica
at her office to report in. She greeted
me with warmth and said she
was very pleased to hear I had read the article.
I groaned inwardly as she added she was excited
to hear my thoughts on the article. But as far as I could
tell, she had no clue as to my predicament. I was scared to death
she would discover what a complete charlatan I was.
Angelica gave me directions to her office
near the Medical Center. We planned to meet the next day for lunch.
As I walked to her office, I was very nervous. I was well
aware I was standing on shaky ground. I could say enough to prove I
had read the article, but if she asked for insights there was a good
chance I would probably freeze up and be forced to confess my abject
stupidity.
I wanted to save face so badly, but I was so
clueless about this article, I didn't see how I was going to fool an intelligent woman like
Dr. Frias.
I felt my hands clammy with sweat as I
entered her office. I made a small joke about
the article to
cheer me up, something like "At first I
was indecisive about what
it meant, now I'm not sure".
To her credit, Angelica smiled. She was so gracious. My
heart ached; why couldn't I be smart enough to hang with her?
Maybe it was a good thing she was a
psychiatrist. I was on the edge of a nervous
breakdown.
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As I walked in the door, my anxiety was instantly ratcheted up
to a new level.
Angelica announced we were going to some place fancy to eat. I had
expected something like a coffee shop or a simple restaurant.
I immediately spoke up that I wasn't dressed
for a placed like this. No
such luck. Angelica said nonsense, I looked fine.
The next thing I knew she was driving us to the swankiest
private-membership-only doctors club in the entire Medical Center.
You know, a place for Hippocrates, Cooley
and DeBakey plus the
rest of Houston's medical elite.
I don't remember the name of the place. Who knows. I
don't remember where it was either. I
had bigger things to worry about. My clothing anxiety was
creeping in to add to my worries. I tried to calm my fears by reminding myself that I had carefully
chosen one of my favorite outfits.
I wore a
nice pair of dark pants plus
an attractive dark gray and white plaid shirt,
something fairly close to the shirt in the picture.
I had black socks, black shoes, and a black belt. I even took the time to
comb my hair. I
looked okay. I was presentable. Why should I worry? But on the ride over, worry I did.
As we entered the reception area,
the man at the desk took one look at me and frowned mightily.
He pointed to a sign. Now both of us realized for the first time this place
required a coat and tie. Uh oh.
Instantly I realized my fears had been correct.
I was definitely underdressed for a place like this. I should have
worn professional attire 'just in case'.
Why hadn't I anticipated
this possibility? How hard would it have been to bring along a
coat and tie in my back seat? The answer, of course, is that I am genetically
programmed to be stupid anytime clothes are involved
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NO WAY OUT
Too late now. We already know I'm
much too stupid dating back to high school to
anticipate this sort of thing naturally. Already pathologically nervous about the
Murray Bowen article, now I
have a dark hunch I
am in even bigger trouble.
I voiced my reservations about continuing
down this path to
Angelica.
Why not go somewhere else? But Angelica said
something along the lines of 'it's no big deal, we are here, don't worry about it'.
Easy for her to say.
She didn't know my past.
If I had to guess, Angelica was just as surprised at the man'
intransigence as I was. She decided to put on her
"professional look" and see if that would help. In a
flash, Angelica was transformed into "Dr. Frias".
She presented herself as a doctor and a club
member and I was her honored guest.
She was trying to use her prestige and status at the front
desk to smooth the way.
No luck. Her professional demeanor wasn't good enough. These rules were
going to be enforced. I stopped breathing.
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The man at the desk excused himself and went to summon the
Maitre' d. Now the head guy showed up. He took one look
at me and sniffed with contempt. He explained in the imperious
tone of someone who takes their position a bit too seriously that a coat
and tie are MANDATORY at
this establishment. No Exceptions.
This
didn't bother me. In fact it gave me a face-saving reason to
suggest we leave. This impending train
wreck could still be avoided. "Oh
gosh, no coat, no tie! How stupid of me! What a tough break. Let's go
to Denny's!"
Indeed, my suggestion
almost worked. Angelica had already taken
one step towards the door when amazingly the Maitre' d spoke up.
He said, "Dr. Frias, you and your guest don't have to leave. I can help!"
This didn't sound good. I turned pale white.
The Maitre' d said they were prepared for these
problems. He pointed to a door. He INSISTED I go
into the nearby closet
and pick out a coat. My jaw dropped open. There
really was no way out of this!!
I noticed Angelica was suppressing a giggle at my plight.
I said a silent
prayer that she would not realize
that I was
practically panic-stricken. I
was already in a tizzy over this incomprehensible article
to begin with, but now things were growing
more ominous.
This unexpected dress code crisis had begun to evoke a flood of my painful high
school fashion memories.
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THINGS GET WORSE... MAKE
THAT 'MUCH WORSE'
Like a man walking to the gallows, I moved
slowly to the coat room.
I closed the door behind me just to have some
privacy. Maybe I could regain some composure. I was so tense I could scream.
Alone in this closed area I viewed my choices. I
was stunned by what I
saw. This room contained about twenty plaid
sports coats. Every coat
in this room appeared to be a refugee from a golf course. I
imagine understood what this place was - it was a plaid golf
jacket graveyard. Every one of the jackets had been "donated" by various doctors for
a very obvious reason...
Every
single one of these coats was totally hideous!!
I fantasized that at certain times, various doctors had
seen a
special new woman enter their life. At
some point, these
women took a peek into their closets, noticed these
plaid sports coats and
screamed bloody murder. They said to
hell with the prenup, these coats were serious deal breakers.
Get rid of
the jackets or the
wedding is off!
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No doubt about it. This room was where the
plaid coats came to die.
After all, no self-respecting resale shop would have them.
Furthermore, by giving the coats to their private club, no doubt the doctors took a tax write-off for their generous 'donations'.
Maybe they even came to visit their old coats sometimes when
their new wives weren't looking.
I looked at the hangers. Every
coat in the room
was Golf Course Plaid.
Burgundy
plaid, green plaid, red plaid, orange plaid. Ugly
Ugly Ugly! Plaid Plaid Plaid
everywhere. I was wearing a plaid shirt. Plaid
on plaid, look bad. Wear plaid, go mad. What
in the hell was I supposed to do?
There was a brief moment of hope when I
discovered a
coat that remotely matched my shirt.
False alarm. It was too small.
How do I choose from these truly awful coats? Then I
discovered the selection process was actually very simple. There
was in fact only one coat in the
entire closet that I could even get
into.
Now mind you I am no Terminator, but
at 6' 1", 200 lbs, I
was a big guy and
these were small jackets.
Apparently
height and a career in medicine were
negatively
correlated. Or maybe the big guys stand up
to their new wives and argue to keep their coats.
Grunting, squirming,
and yes, cursing, I barely managed to get
some awful red-green sports coat
similar to the picture over my shoulders.
I looked like Ralphie's kid brother in
The
Christmas Story whose arms stick straight out from wearing too many
coats.
I immediately started to worry I might not be able to get back
out of this coat!!
Maybe I would have to rip it off and tear the coat to shreds to regain my
freedom. A grim smile
crosses my face. Gallows humor.
Now I noticed there were ties
too. The ties were far too ugly; I decided not to put one on.
Besides, I could barely move my arms. How
was I supposed to tie the damn thing? So I walked outside praying
the Maitre 'd had disappeared.
No such luck. The moment I opened the
door, the Maitre' d spotted me
from across the room. He smiled. Caught you!
I think he had sensed my
willingness to test his authority (which is exactly
what I wanted to do). He
was much too concerned I might actually try to
enter the premises without the required clothing. There is an old
saying, 'a clerk is a jerk'. This guy had nothing better to do than
push me around. In addition, no doubt he had taken an instant dislike to my bad
attitude even though I had said practically nothing at all to this point.
I guess I saw the utter futility of protest, so it had to be
my expression of undisguised disgust at the proceedings that gave my true
thoughts away.
Like a cop who has pulled some dumbass over for speeding, the man walked up to me and
made me stand for inspection. After giving me
a look of contempt and the obligatory scolding
for trying to get past him, he then made a
discovery... I wasn't wearing a tie! tsk tsk. So now he
ordered a waiter to go
back in the closet pick out a tie.
Meanwhile he kept me under his
gaze and
thumb. Don't want to miss one moment of the
punishment phase!
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Sending the assistant to the closet
was
yet another move I had not anticipated. I
had assumed that if I were caught,
I would get to go back and make the choice
of tie myself. No such luck.
I
began to worry that this
assistant waiter could care less. Sure enough, I was right to
worry. He was in there
for less than 20 seconds. He quickly returned with what had to be the first tie that caught his eye.
And why did it catch his eye?
Yes, that is right, you guessed it. He saw
it first because it was the UGLIEST tie in the closet!! Who
could miss it?
The tie was a
dark blue paisley print
with amoeba-like splotches scattered throughout.
yuck.
If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any
luck at all.
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Under the impatient eye of the Maitre d' and
his dutiful waiter, I tried
to put on the tie. Now came the next humiliation - I
couldn't tie the tie.
Unfortunately I could barely move my hands because the coat
was too tight. I
didn't want to take the coat off because it was such an effort. It took
me forever to tie the knot. As I struggled
to put the tie on, I could
see Angelica using every ounce of her professional self-control to keep from bursting out in
hysterical laughter. The Maitre 'd offered to tie
it for me. This is ridiculous. So finally I gave up and took
the coat off after all. The waiter had to tug at the sleeves to
help me remove it. I tied the tie, then with the help of both men
squirmed back into the coat.
Incomprehensibly, the
Maitre d' approved my attire as suitable for his
dining room.... what was he
thinking? Thanks to him, I was uglier than any Halloween monster,
but as long as I had on a coat and tie, let's send the son of a bitch into
the dining room. He nodded to the waiter permission to
escort us to our seats. As I entered the
dining area I pinched myself to
see if maybe perhaps this was a dream.
Maybe I could wake up from this
and everything would be okay. Nope, too bad, this
was reality. This was
really happening
to me.
There was no escape.
The cream of Houston's
medical society and their guests were about to witness my public
humiliation.
I was wearing a straight-jacket
red-green plaid coat over a gray plaid shirt
with a dark blue tie covered with amoeba splotches.
I could wear a
Scream mask and not possibly appear any more
frightening.
I made Freddy Krueger look
handsome. I was Night
of the Living Dead, a walking, lurching zombie nightmare.
Watch out, cover your eyes, here
comes the terrifying Plaid Monster!!!
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Not surprisingly, I was
hyper-sensitive to
any signs of disapproval. It didn't take long. Sure enough, the moment I entered the dining room, six women to my right
immediately gasped. They stopped eating and looked up in
astonishment. From another direction I saw a lady in a corner of the room
also gasp. Then she poked
her companion and pointed to me. Her companion dropped his jaw and shook his head
in disgust.
Who let this guy in here? Mind you, this surely was a doctor hardened by
a career full of blood and guts, but by his
expression, nothing he had ever seen matched the horror that was me.
Two people got up from their tables to go. I watched in
abject dismay as they
spotted me and recoiled in terror. They quickly sat
back down rather than be forced to pass the
leper that is me
in the aisle. Whatever I had, they didn't want to catch it.
No one wanted to be near me.
I felt like Carrie at
the Senior Prom with pig blood all over me.
I felt the stir in the room and heard the muffled
whispers. One by one the entire room began to stare.
The room fell to a
complete hush as all previous conversation was suspended.
People were craning their
necks to get a better view. I felt like the
Elephant Man as I paraded down the aisle.
I realized that every
single person had put down their
silverware and stopped eating. I had caused the entire room to
lose their appetite. Their disgust
was difficult to ignore.
Nausea swept over me. I had a pounding
headache. I hated myself for getting into this mess. I
was sick
with embarrassment. In my mind's eye the painful 25-year old memory of Gary Glesby and my
classmates engaged in rhythmic jeering on the bus
raced once again through my mind.
The Dumb Ox rides again.
Yet this time it
was far, far worse. People
were actually covering their
faces to hide their expressions as
I walked by.
Maybe they hoped I wouldn't notice them! Let's
face it; the whole room was terrified of me.
Thanks to my Golf Clothes, I was so ugly I could rule the Rain Forest.
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1988 - HALLOWEEN HIJINKS
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For those of you curious how my conversation with Dr. Frias went after my
long costume parade across the dining room, it was
anti-climatic. There were no further
fireworks. I simply told her how angry I was that I had been forced to
wear this ridiculous outfit in front of all those
important people and that I felt
miserable. She said
she understood.
Was the lunch a success? No, of course not.
I
made myself feel a little better by taking the coat off once I sat down.
Now I wasn't quite so hideous. Then I decided to take my
stupid tie off too. The waiter frowned at me the next time
he came by, but I frowned back. Taking one look at my
expression, he didn't say a word. What had been the
purpose of this charade? What had been accomplished?
If it was decorum they were after, they had really
missed the point.
There is a gruesome Arabic saying that the easiest way to forget about the
loss of a finger is to lose one's hand. In other
words, one way to solve a problem is to find another
problem that is much worse. In this case, all my
catastrophic fears about the Psych Article were nothing
compared to Le Ordeal De Plaid.
Coward that I am, for the entire meal, I hid behind
my sullen mood
as an excuse to force to our conversation to
remain superficial. I used my
bad mood as an excuse to avoid talking about the Murray Bowen article. This
is how I was spared the added humiliation of
showing Dr. Frias that her favorite article was about 30 points
above my
ability on the IQ scale.
After fighting off a colossal depression, about a week later I
told my story to a group of friends at the studio. They laughed so
hard they more or less had to be helped back up off the floor. I
was embarrassed, of course, but their laughter actually did cheer
me up in odd sort of way.
That year at our annual SSQQ Halloween Party, my buddy Ken Schmetter
came to the party 'disguised' as me at the Med Center Dining Room. Of course Ken was
immediately the hit of the party thanks to his wicked practical joke
at my expense.
I didn't think it was funny. It was very unsettling to see
myself in the mirror. If you substitute some
black pants and shoes, shrink the coat and make the tie a little
uglier, Ken's outfit in the picture was
frightening close to what I looked like in that dining room.
Ouch.
Later in the night I asked Ken how his evening had gone.
Ken had the nerve to complain to me that none of the women at the party would
dance with him because they all said he looked too ugly.
In fact, they were kind of avoiding him at this point which
explained why he was available to talk to me. No else
would have him. I
replied that it served him right. Hmmph.
Then I asked Ken if he would ever consider wearing that outfit
out in public. Ken looked at me as if I were out of my mind.
Then he thought about it for a moment. Ken frowned and
said, "It must have been embarrassing." Well,
actually, yes it was.
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I don't believe I ever saw Dr. Frias again. I
have little doubt her disappearance from the studio was connected to
this incident.
I do vaguely remember getting a sympathetic note from her when I first
wrote this story, but I don't know where I put it. Truth be told, she
was helpless to protect me from this debacle. I have little doubt
the incident was traumatic for her as well. Perhaps she was shunned by her colleagues as punishment for
bringing me there and scaring everyone to death.
When I reviewed this article in 2007, I
discovered via Google that Dr. Frias had relocated to the Los Angeles area.
Perhaps this lovely and impressive woman moved there to escape the
lingering shame of having been seen in the dining room with me.
I suppose thanks to Google my sorry tale will loom behind her like an unwanted shadow for the rest of her career.
No doubt she will someday offer to pay me a King's Ransom to remove her
name from this story. Would you blame her?
2003 - I RUN INTO GARY GLESBY AFTER
ALL THESE YEARS
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In 2003 there was
an interesting development to this story.
One day I received an invitation to attend the 35th St.
John's Reunion for the Class of 1968.
I had only been to one previous reunion.
Unfortunately my dance studio's annual Halloween Party and these five year
reunions always seemed to land on the same day. But
here in 2003 the two
events were scheduled a week apart.
Why not? I decided to go.
As I dressed for the evening I found myself in a very
strange mood. It had been nearly 40 years since the taunting
episode on the bus, but as I dress I could not get that story out of my mind.
Now my clothing
anxiety began to kick in. You might think I am kidding, but
actually I am not. I became very conscious of what I was going to
wear. I was sorely tempted to wear dark
burgundy shoes and a matching burgundy belt along with my black pants and
dark shirt just to prove I was oblivious to the issue. So what if burgundy and black don't
match?
My burgundy shoes were polished, but my black shoes needed polish.
I didn't want to take the time to polish the black shoes. Besides, what difference did
it make? As I thought about it, I realized what I really wanted to do was
rebel. Maybe I should wear a Hawaiian shirt and a Grateful Dead
tie. Or maybe an Ozzie
Osbourne Black Sabbath tee-shirt and a paisley tie. To hell with all of them.
Then just as suddenly as that I backed down.
Nah, better not. Why take a fashion risk?
So I got out the brush and applied the obligatory polish.
As I stroked my
black shoes to perfection, I could not help but think
further about the 1963 White
Socks incident and my genetic curse. I laughed as I looked around
for a black belt. It was now 2003. Here we were 40 years later and
all I could think about was the White Socks incident.
How silly. What a long
strange trip it's been. I let out a deep sigh.
That evening I was pleased to be reunited with 24 members out of 50 from
our graduating class. Nearly 50%. Not bad.
I was early. New people strolled in every few minutes or so.
Ding dong. The doorbell rang and I looked up to see who it was this
time. I was highly amused to see Carter Simonds show
up wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt.
Good for you, buddy!!
No clothing shame for this guy. Then I remembered that Carter was on the
golf team back in high school. Hmm. It figures.
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I noticed when Gary Glesby turned up about half an hour after I did. I watched him
like a hawk out of the corner of my eye. Always the raconteur,
Gary immediately began to catch up
on stories with all his friends. Half an hour
later, as if by fate,
I ran into Gary out on the patio. There he was just a couple feet away from me.
Everyone else was inside. We were alone
together. It wasn't easy,
but I
decided to say hello.
The conversation started slowly. Gary talked about his law career and his
children. As I listened, I realized this was probably the first time I had
ever talked to Gary one on one in my life.
Despite sharing many
classes
over nine years, Gary and I didn't know each other from
Adam.
Finally I told Gary I had mentioned him in a story I had written on my web
site. To my complete surprise,
Gary said he
had already seen it!
Apparently a former dance student of mine named Jeannie was also a
legal client of Gary's. One day she was reading some of my stories
on the ssqq web site and ran across Gary's name
in this story.
Gary said he did not remember the incident at all, but didn't doubt it
happened. He smilingly disputed my unkind suggestion that he was the
"Biggest Mouth" in school. I smiled
back. After some gentle prodding on my
part, Gary did at least acknowledge the line in front of him probably wasn't particularly
long.
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Gary went on to add that reading the story made him re-evaluate his effect
on other people. If anything, it helped him decide to
be a bit softer
in his teasing. The revelation must have worked because the man I spoke to
this evening was a warm
and gracious person. The modern Mr. Glesby was very easy to like.
I was impressed at what a good sport Gary was about this trivial event. He
could have handled it much differently and told me to
drop dead, but there was never any
awkwardness. I was happy to note we both ended up with a good laugh.
I smiled as an ancient chip on my shoulder fell harmlessly to
the floor. Yet another rough edge in my psyche had been smoothed out.
I was glad I had spoken with Gary. It was
good to take the sting out of
this childhood demon.
The White Socks nightmare had finally been put to rest.
But the Horror of the Plaid Jacket incident remains a skeleton in my
closet that still haunts me today. It serves as a lifelong reminder that I
have an inescapable Genetic Curse.
When it comes down to any decision for which clothes are
right for which situation, I am always in danger of effortlessly making the
worst choice imaginable.
No doubt that somewhere in my genetic makeup there is a caveman
ancestor with a penchant for wearing truly hideous clothing. What
other explanation could there be?
Let me add that since I have done some research, I have
discovered there are a lot of other guys out there
who have the exact same problem as me. The only difference
is that thanks to my life tragedies, I have a thin skin about
it. But not these guys. They have no conscience at
all!
In fact, if forced to guess,
they like how they look. Thanks to Dave Barry, we know
exactly who their ancestors are.
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