"Secret Trendsetters"

Make no mistake.

This is not about my unwillingness to change.

I can change, baby.

And you can take that to the bank. 

I am no flibbertigibbet, mind you  – “I think I’ll try this; no, I think I’ll try that.”  (Boy, did I spell flibbertigibbet wrong the first time.)  But I can change.

Boy, can I change.

Switching from “jockeys” to “boxers”? – Just like that.  (Imagine me snapping my fingers before “Just.”)  I mean, “Cold turkey.”  No, “Boxers Thursdays, and I’ll work my way up.”  I made the decision, and next thing you know, there is a stack of jockey shorts, waiting for “Helping Hands for the Blind.”

Sports socks?  Half way up the calf?  Gone.   (Actually, I still have them.  But I don’t wear them.)  Switched on a dime.  Now, it’s “anklets” only!

Oh, and the electric shaver.  Goodbye, blades.  (Minus the uncredited “touch-ups” in the difficult “neck” area.)  (By the way, I consulted the manual and the electric shaver works better now.  My shaves are virtually eighty percent as close as with blades.  And there’s no blood!)

I’m tellin’ ya, you bet on my predictability and you’ll lose your shirt!  Yesterday morning?  I put on my right sock.  And then you know what I did?  I put on my right shoe.  After putting on my right sock, I traditionally put on my left sock.  Not this time.  I put on my right shoe.

Viola!  And ipso facto!

Okay, I may have gone an example or two beyond, “Me thinks he doth protesteth too much.”  But I just wanted you to understand:  I am no enemy of change.

Except…

When that change flies in out of nowhere, directing a new “policy”, without my knowledge, understanding or personal approval…

That change…

I do not care for.

Typically, I am no conspiracy theorist.  I have no interest in “Area 51” or the “Truth” about the Kennedy assassination… although I wonder if maybe those aliens might have killed Kennedy. 

Just funnin’ with ya.

But I do suspect there is an element of forced coercion going on.  (Is there any other kind?  “Unforced” coercion is, like… “Okay.”)

I have increasingly noticed that certain things seem to just happen out of the blue.  You’re doing things one way, and then suddenly, without “say so” or agreement on your part, you are forced, or at least seriously encouraged, to do them another way, the original way, becoming mustily suspect.

My oft-mentioned example in this regard:

Going up at the end of sentences.

Nobody ever did that.  Now, almost everyone does.  Smart people on television, experts in Quantum Physics and macroeconomics are going up at the end of their sentences.  Learned scholars.  Graduates of fine universities.  Everyone’s doing “The Rise.”

Sometimes, even I do it.  I don’t mean to.  I just get caught up in the contagion?

Someone must have initiated “going up at the end of sentences.”  It did not materialize by itself.  And now, with neither vote nor referendum,

It’s “The Law.”  (“Fuddy-duddies:  Ignore at your own peril.”)

And then there was this.  “This” being what suggested this post in the first place.  (He said, 521 words into his offering.)

I am buying a new suit for an upcoming wedding.  (I have a suit I bought fifteen or so years ago, but the wife thinks the pants legs are too “flappy.”)  I frequent a “high end” department store, because I believe a man has a right to be ripped off every fifteen or so years.)  (By the way,the store totally botched the alterations – “taking in” the pants they were instructed to “let out”, but that’s another story, that I mostly just gave away.)

I proceed to the “Menswear Department”, where I am confronted by racks of suits – primarily gray.  Also black, and the occasional dark blue.

Let me “set the stage” for you here.  Sartorially – not being inflexible, simply stating a preference –  in three words:

“I buy ‘Brown.’”

My “Color Spectrum of Choice” – the reliable “Earth Tones”, ranging from tan to tree bark.  (Though not birch bark, which is white with slivers of black, ribboning through it.) 

“Where are your brown suits?” I curiously inquire of the “high end” department store “Sales Representative.”

To which I am dutifully informed,

“They don’t make brown suits anymore.”

Now I realize this is only one outlet, and the next logical step is to move on.  But I didn’t.  I am standing in a recognized fancy department store, and if they say, “They don’t make brown suits anymore”, I concedingly accept that that is the case.

They question is,

“Why?’

I mean, is it possible that, arbitrarily and without notice, they have “disappeared” an entire color spectrum of suits?

“Bye, bye, ‘Brown’”?

What happened to “Free Will”, the customer’s right to select the suit of their choice, regardless of color, cuffs or country of origin?  Now, it’s like,

“Brown suit, please.”

“No!”

I wound up buying a gray suit.  I felt viscerally horrified.  My grandfather wore gray suits.  And now, incredibly…

… me?

Not to trigger a panic, but I am sensing a secret cabal involved, powerful forces, meeting in darkened back rooms or mountaintop hideaways, issuing “The Word”, and “The Word” is:

“No ‘Brown’.”

That’s not “Personal Freedom.”  That’s Soviet Russia.

With fabrics.

My solution to this insidious tyranny?

My “usual.”

Nothing.

But I can clarionly say,

“Hey!”

And let the “doers” of the world take it from there.

And do something, they must.

For if they can ban “Brown” as a menswear alternative…

Are any of us truly safe?