I'm going to take a little detour here from writing. (Trust me.) In our book SIRENZ, our two characters Meg and Shar get into scrapes and trouble all because of fashion. For the want of a shoe, they cause tragedy, to undo it they make an unholy deal. Clothes figure largely in their lives and difficulties. But at least they make sure they look good no matter what mess they're in.
Too bad it's not like that in real life.
Shoddy jeans with holes, an ill fitting ugly shirt and scuffed boots.
Shorts and flip flops.
Over-sized brown frumpy capris.
What do they all have in common besides being fashion horrors? They were all outfits people wore to my mother-in-law's wake AND funeral.
Are ya freakin kidding me??? To pay their RESPECTS, to COMFORT the family, to HONOR this lovely woman, they dress like they don't give a s*&).
SHAME ON YOU. I mean, seriously? These are the same people who look better when they go bar hopping than they do going to church. (I've seen too-tight sweat pants on Palm Sunday.) Someone needs to smack you people; your grandmother, your guidance counselor, Clinton from TLC's What Not to Wear.
And it doesn't stop there. Jeans with a sport jacket to a wedding shows you're a lazy slob who couldn't bother to get your suit cleaned. It's not chic, it's PATHETIC. (See the example Hades sets in SIRENZ. He would throw you to his three-headed dog Cerebus for dressing that bad, but even his dog thinks you look too awful to chomp on.)
So the lesson here? People notice things like this, and they TALK about you, laugh at you behind your back and point you out as an example of What NOT To Do. They tell their children (because I know I do it with mine), "Don't be like that loser!" So dress like a grown-up, like a person who cares how he presents himself, and like a person who has some pride.
'Nuff said.
