Sunday 13 February 2011

In Which I Realise I've Thrown Away a Fortune in Clothing

When the mice got into my drawer, they shredded holes in everything they found. I chucked it all out, unsorted, without a moment's thought for the riches I was discarding. 
Now, my work shirts get hard use. they get tears, cuts, spark-burns, they get oil, paint, silicone and worse. So mice really are just another challenge.
I start out with good shirts. I've been known to buy bundles of unissued military surplus t-shirts, yes, they're khaki, sand, green, whatever, but they're a decent weight and last well. 
 Then, today, on TYWIKIWIDBI, I saw this.


If Jeffrey, at NYC, cares to get in touch with me, I think we can do some business. I guess I could manage about five per week.

P.S. My chosen hobby area is in what we might call off-road motor-sport. At the end in which I indulge it's a discipline undertaken at low, almost walking speed, an intellectual as much as a physical challenge, the object is to traverse a number of sectioned routes across rough terrain, without stopping or hitting any of the numbered penalty gates. Inevitably, every now and then theres a grinding crunch as a rock or a tree gets into the action, sometimes a rollover, and a few dents and scrapes are to be expected.
Out on the road, I see these glossy vehicles with suspension lifts, winches, jacks, expedition racks. It's obvious that they don't use any of it, they've not just returned from crossing Borneo.
So, in a spoof article for my club magazine, a few years back, I posited a new business. "Off-Road Vehicle Distressing".
I'd have booths where you could bring your new Range Rover, and my guys would lovingly scrape along the sides with broken bottles, slam it with rusty chains, for extra money, you could have us charge at it with an elephant or rhinoceros. We could fill it with baboons to rip the seats and shit on the carpets.
Oh yes. And combine that with Jeffrey's shirts, and you'll really look the real deal, rolling up at the country-club.

4 comments:

  1. $1642!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    What I am wearing ,must be worth $10,000 at least!

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  2. i'm not surprised by fashion being bereft of new ideas but the price!... maybe the steepness of the cost is supposed to blind the target audience to the absurdity. i liked your distressed vehicle idea, especially the part about baboon shit. it reminded me of when i was a kid the big thing was getting unfinished pine furniture and bringing it home and pounding on it with hammers and chains and scratching it with nails, etc. my mom did it for my dresser once. of course, with all things faux... never really looks as good as an authentic patina

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  3. Adullamite: I'm sure you undervalue your ensemble. Don't forget to factor in the shoes. I have some boots just reaching the $5000 mark. But next week I'll be digging postholes in a muddy field and mixing concrete. That should add a couple of grand to the value.

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  4. Jim: The Babboon shit is probably a bit fanciful and overcostly, baboons not being everyday items around here, so I was thinking of just shutting a couple of pitbulls in, with burger-meat laced with laxatives.
    I never understood the furniture distressing thing myself, having grown up with furniture that was not exactly new, and my parents, as was the norm in those days, trying to disguise the knocks with filler and wax.
    We had old dressers and chests that had been passed down forever. And I can recall breaking old cabinets up, and throwing them on the bonfire. A few years later, every street-corner seemed to have a stripped-pine emporium.

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