The Boy's burgeoning male fashion sense

Today we spent 45 minutes in line for something that took 15 minutes, because I love spending time in line. Standing next to perfect strangers, uncertain how long it will take to get to the front, while trying to control a child who is more like an overcaffeinated monkey with ADHD, and wondering why I didn't use the restroom earlier is my idea of a good time.

In reality, my willingness to stand in line depends on the reward at the end. Yes, sometimes I have no choice, like at the airport, the @$%@! DMV and my local methadone clinic, but there are few things on this Earth that I'd consider worthy of a 45-minute wait. It's why I never go Christmas shopping on the morning after Thanksgiving -- a $40 digital picture frame just doesn't make the 45-minute wait list, especially when that time must be spent with morning people.

In this case, we were going to see a department store Nutcracker display on steroids. Had I known I'd wait 45 minutes I might not have done it, but it was enjoyable nevertheless, and it made The Boy happy, so I'm not kicking myself for wasting a portion of my life in line.

At the end of the Nutcracker display was a Santa Claus, one employed by a local photographer who charges kneecap-breaking prices just to take a memorable photo of your child peeing and crying on Santa's lap. (Santa, by the way, does NOT make the 45-minute wait list.) But as we stood in line to see the Nutcracker display, we noticed -- because there's nothing else to do when you're standing in line but notice things -- that parents had dressed their little girls in beautiful Christmas dresses. Their hair was nicely done. They wore nice shoes and sometimes tights, which made them all look delightfully female.

Then we looked at The Boy, just as he was pounding his toy Lightning McQueen into oblivion on a nearby wall. His hair was messed up. He was in jeans that probably had a hole in the knee and Lightning McQueen light-up shoes and we were pretty proud of the fact that he was wearing a shirt that didn't have either a sport or some sort of animal on the front. And his shirt was clean. It was Sunday, after all. He had to go to church this morning.

The Boy has a fashion sense, all right. His idea of fashion is this: Any shirt he wears must have one of the following emblazoned in big letters and loud, bright colors: baseball, football, race cars, basketball, dinosaurs or some saying that makes adults laugh. These shirts must go with jeans. And his Lightning McQueen sneakers. That's it.

Go ahead. Dress him in tan slacks. He'll scream as if he just got kidnapped away from his favorite Blues Clues episode, and then he'll take the pants off himself. If you manage to succeed getting those pants on -- and if you did you probably used rope and some local Teamsters -- then try getting him to wear dress shoes that will actually go with it. You can't. Not unless you employ some heavy bribery, such as an entire bag of M&Ms or an expensive toy, like a 1963 Mustang.

But he is pickiest on the shirts. And his fashion sense comes from whatever will gain attention from his male classmates, who for some reason are not that keen on wearing something that was modeled by Tom Cruise in his latest action flick. Thus, he protests loudly any time we try to get him to wear something that won't make his classmates ogle his torso. It was a minor miracle, in fact, that we got him to wear a big red sweater for his own portrait -- a shirt he complained, loudly, was "too fluffy."

In reality, he's probably just taking after his old man. I hate wearing dress clothes -- if some idiot dresses me in a suit for my funeral I'm going to come back and haunt those responsible. Whenever I have something to do on Fridays, jeans day, at work, I feel robbed and start begging my boss to let me wear jeans on Thursday, even volunteering to take a pay cut.

The other bright spot about The Boy's fashion sense is this: At least he isn't insisting on wearing his favorite outfit -- his birthday suit. He is never happier than he is while running around the house, post-bath, bare as the day he was born.



It's a guarantee that people are running around naked over at humor-blogs.com. Crap. All this nudity talk is going to get some creeps to my Web site. WELCOME CREEPS!!!