A Series of Complaints. Volume 1. Part 3.

     Complaint number one. I want to take you seriously. But if I’m at your job trying to get some service, and you’re wearing a Slipknot shirt and torn jeans, or sweatpants and some stained up, raggedy T shirt, I’m already wondering whether you can help me with my service needs. I’m not trying to be rude, dude. I just have a lot to do. If you're 18 or under by all means wear whatever you want but it hits a point like about 20s that it needs to kind of move towards something different (They're not, my people, or my expectations)"People" start expecting something. If your shoes are busted, and you haven't bought yourself any new pair of shoes and you just have Starbucks cups littering your car and it's obvious that you've been just killing drinks and not buying yourself a pair of shoes, people notice, people might not take you seriously. They might not say anything.
     Complaint number two. What are you supposed to wear, then? What the hell does “corporate casual” mean? My shoes are wrong? Okay, how would I know which shoes are right? I used to have some idea of what a work outfit looked like, but that kind of disintegrated. People started wearing whatever, and now I don’t know where the line is. Somebody’s telling me I need to look like I’m at work instead of going to a concert or hanging out with friends. All right. But what does that actually look like? Apparently, I’m supposed to know. I’m just trying to get dressed, think about the job while I’m there, and make it through the day.
     Complaint number three. On one hand, this is ridiculous. Why should somebody get to impose all these expectations on you? On the other hand, dude, people really won’t take you seriously, and that sucks. If enough people dismiss you, it starts adding up. Eventually, you’re like George Costanza on Seinfeld when they were trying to get rid of him. They put you down in the basement. Everybody’s being nice, supposedly, but are they? Could somebody just tell you? “Your shoes are busted, dude. We’re at work. Could you get a button up shirt, or are you going to keep wearing that System of a Down shirt you’ve had since eighth grade?” The shirt is cool. Nobody cares. Except I think maybe they do.
Complaint number four. Judging people sucks. I hate being judged. You’re out there trying to do your best, and somebody gets all up in your grill over some stupid thing.
One time, I was in the PNW at something like a zoo. It wasn’t exactly a zoo. They had animals in cages on trailers. A traveling zoo, maybe? There was a lion, an alligator, whatever else, and we stopped to look. It was strange, dude. You’d walk up to a trailer, and there would be an alligator in it.
     Then we got to the cheetah. It had some kind of habitat inside a cage on a flatbed trailer. I turned to my youngest, who was about three, and said, “Hey, we need to get one of these cheetahs.”
     This lady went off on me. How dare I even think about taking a cheetah out of the wild and keeping it in captivity? How cruel. How irresponsible. So I say to the lady.
Lady, I’m literally standing here looking at a cheetah in a cage on a trailer. The idea didn’t just come to me out of nowhere. Some guy brought one here. And I’m kidding. I’m talking to my three year old. I don’t know how to take care of a cheetah. I don’t have a cheetah plan.
This very upset lady was judging me for all kinds of things that I hadn't done, that I wouldn't do.
     She was judging me up and judging me down. I don't want to judge people. I don't want to be judged. I couldn't believe this lady's judging me. And then someone's gonna judge someone else's outfit, and then it's like, wait. Am I judging your outfit, or is it that someone might not take you seriously if your shirt's? I mean, does anybody care? I think they do. If I'm gonna buy things from your store, and your store's crusty and busted and it smells bad, I don't want to do that. But if you have a clean store that's tidy and nice and it's lit and you can, like, smells good, I want to go in there. Damn. I mean, it's only, there's just so many places that are so close to being just fabulous.
    ≽(•⩊ •マ≼ And I still have no idea what I'm supposed to be wearing. So I'm gonna wear whatever I want.☮︎