Dressed For Bitterness It was the tail end of the golden age (though we didn't know that yet). advertisers were begging us to take their wheelbarrow's full of money, we had just "acquired" our only real competition, and Christmas was heading to town on an express train. The perfect time to bring on the ridiculous, excessive dot com holiday bash. When invitations were sent out, all we knew was that it would be taking place at city hall. No clue to it's true scope could even have been guessed at. When I arrived a bit early there were already quite a few people waiting for the doors to open and the fun to begin. Executives in tuxedo's with their trophy wives wearing evening gowns purchased just for this occasion. Bloated mid-management in their dot com casual/formal aren't we hip uniforms. Even the low kids on the totem pole had pulled out their Sunday best because, it was after all, city hall. Me? Well, I showed up looking like a bowery bum. While it is true that I am far from what anybody could conceivably refer to as a well dressed man, I do have enough dignity to possess the kinds of clothes which one might need for formal occasions such as this. However, when looking through my wardrobe I couldn't help but think of the fact that I was nothing more than a faceless box lifter. A light bulb changing monkey who was one step above being paid in livestock. And so, after careful consideration, I decided that formality could go fuck itself. Once at the party a large number of conversations I had followed roughly the same pattern. "Nice outfit." As the evening drew near its close and the booze had worked it happy magic an odd thing began to happen. A seemingly secret cabal began to show itself. Fewer people were harassing me about my choice of outfits, and more were coming up to me during quite moments and telling me how great they thought it was that I came to such an extravagant even wearing Average Joe clothes. They were convinced that I had made a highly specific choice to dress like this in some sort of punk rock attempt to be a living billboard saying a great big "fuck you!" to the man. I had no idea that the bitterness was so widespread, nor did I feel very comfortable with so many people thinking I was some sort of bad ass, making fun of the company. The worst part was not being able to tell people that all I really wanted to do was wear comfortable shoes and hammered.
|