Now they’ve taken all my labels away.
You know, the little tags on the inside of our clothes that let
us know the correct way to put them on.
Label in front... wrong. Label in back….right
Now they’ve taken them all away.
Un-Tagged us, as it were.
What next…pockets?
Belt loops?
They call it tag-less.
It’s the new thing.
I call it taking my labels away.
Some genius decided that these little labels were an
inconvenience and possibly an irritant…both emotional and physically.
Now they print them right on to the fabric, which you
probably can’t see in the half light of early morning.
So you end up putting everything on backwards…even your
Fruit of the Looms, which, to a guy, can be problematic…especially after two
cups of coffee.
Just saying….
Why do they mess with these things?
Why can’t they leave well enough alone?
I mean, it’s something that’s worked for countless
generations.
Throw on a t-shirt or a sweater; if the tag is tickling your
chin, then you know it’s on backwards again.
Then all you have to do is curse yourself—mildly—(I mean
it’s just a shirt) pull out your arms, spin it around and off you go.
Unless you’re a college student….
College students don’t seem to care what way it’s on. Just
that it’s theirs.
Or someone’s in their room.
Or dorm….
Sure…there’s always the danger you could leave the tag
sticking up and out in the back, rendering you unintelligent looking..
There is that.
And okay…sometime there’s a nasty little edge or wayward piece
of thread that was spun from Desert Squirrel fur that sticks out and pokes the
back of your neck all day.
At first you’re not sure what it is—maybe a bee slipped down
the back of your shirt while waiting for the train—but eventually you figure it
out.
Then you spend the rest of the day twisting and squirming,
poking and prodding, trying to find a tactic to get the little bugger situated
in a way that it's pretty much not irritating you anymore…or at least not
drawing blood.
Kind of like you did with your co-worker in the next
cubicle.
Of course, now that
you’ve spent about an hour arranging your clothes properly, you really can’t
move…at least the upper half of your body…or else you risk messing the whole
thing up.
Hey…nobody said there weren’t trade-offs in life.
That’s what voice mail is for.
However, if you don’t find this to be an elegant enough
solution to the problem, you can always cut the tag out…but only as a last
resort.
Sometimes cutting the tag out altogether, leads to a whole
other set of problems.
For one, you risk leaving an even more annoying ragged
little edge there, because you don’t want to cut right down to the seam line
and risk unraveling your whole sweater. Plus you want to leave a little bit of
the tag behind, for, you know, landmark front/back purposes, or else your
defeating the whole purpose of the tag in the first place…let alone the premise
of this treatise.
And what about those cleaning instructions. How will you know if you’re supposed to dry
clean only, wash with like colors—which I though was outlawed long ago…and
rightly so—or lay flat to dry?
What are you supposed to do then…guess?
I guess….
I mean what could it hurt to dry vertically? I mean really….
So what if most of your clothes start to look grey?
Grey is good.
Nothing wrong with grey.
Okay…enough…I get it.
The way of the world.
Progress.
Labels have gone the way of detachable collars and cuffs.
8 track tapes and VHS.
Possibly even the Twinkie….
Too depressing to continue.
Besides I have to go fix my shirt.
Guess why….
Yep…it usually takes me at least two cups of coffee to
realize I can’t lift my arms past my belly button.
I just hope I got the Fruit of the Looms right today….
You got that right. I am wondering about the etiquette involved. I mean, if you see someone who looks great, but their tags are showing, do you tell them? "Hey Buster, what's with the tags?" Would it be better to remain silent while they clutter up the environment. Long ago, before the Sisterhood,while entering Filene's in Boston, my mother noticed a woman whose slip was showing. I can't believe my mother said to a perfect stranger: "Pardon me, but your slip is showing." The PS said: "That's just the way I like it." That line was good for some in-family retorts for quite a while.
ReplyDeleteI guess it depends whether or not their name is Buster. Personally, I try to encourage
Deletefoolish looking people to remain foolish looking, as it only enhances my own standing.
You do know that is your second “slipped slip” reference in less than a month? You’re only allowed one more for the year so be careful, my friend.