Shirt Tales. With Back End Attached.

This is a tale about the narcotic influence of beautiful women and how they can lead one to forget cherished principles and political values, how they can cause a confirmed anti-fashionist, recovering communist and slob sympathiser to spend five minutes in a luxury clothing store without collapsing into a fit.

I do pass by this shop occasionally—on the way to the DVD place—but I usually ignore it. It is better that way. The last time I paid any attention to it I found myself instinctively reaching for my belt, where I used to keep my grenades. I was stopped in time, though, by the colleague I was with, who reminded me that we don’t do that sort of thing anymore because we had decided to work to fight the system from within.

This afternoon, though, I was not up to fighting anything. The Company of Pretty Girls (CPG) had lulled my natural malevolent antiestablishmentarian tendencies to a flaccid ineffectiveness and when we wandered into the clothing store, there was no sharp jolt of the system, no sudden break-out of goose pimples, no furious reddening of eyes. On the contrary, I was quite enjoying myself.

So these charming and delightful women flitted around the store looking for items to further augment their already considerable pulchritude and I leaned against a counter, musing over when these shops are going to learn to install televisions to occupy the guys, because we certainly will not be entertained by the display of scarves and shoes.

Diva and Princess, probably noticing that I was vegetating at the counter, decided to rope me into the fun by turning attention to the men’s shirts. By reflex, my eye searched for the plainest garment on the rack. It came up bereft. No plain shirts; no such sauce in this casserole.

They held up a woollen top of some sort. They are called jerseys, I understand.
That jolt of shock which had been subdued all along? Remember it? I saw the price tag.

I hope I kept my composure and did not spaz visibly out, because the melee that was going on inside was tremendous. Manic screams of “What the bloody freaking extremely atrocious f…!” rent my soul. I thought to myself, “This calls for a match and a can of petroleum fuel. It is my moral obligation to light this offensively-priced ‘jersey’ ablaze and then stomp on the flames while chanting ‘Hell Faya! Hell Faya!’”

People wear these things and then they beep me. You know?

It was a moment of pure and absolute haharing.

But it gets worse. I will tell you the rest on Wednesday.


And now, the conclusion. (Sound of one hand clapping)

First some background. Previously on Shirt Tales, Starring Baz as Scruffy Slick:

Scruffy Slick is pathologically fashion-blind. He has absolutely no taste. He likes to pretend that there is a political agenda behind his inability to dress snazzily, and he cites his status as an ex-communist often to back this up, but do not be fooled. The Red days explain why he doesn’t dress expensively, not why he doesn’t dress well.

The thing is, dude is incapable of making a competent fashion decision. Hell will freeze over first. Fortunately enough, he knows this and does not tempt fate. His wardrobe? All black trousers and blue jeans, nothing else. Shirts? Plain unadorned no-maridadi T-shirts or simple button-downers in only slightly varying shades of blue, grey and white.

Here ends the Third Person portion of our story.

But we haven’t actually begun the narration. I just got tired of sounding pompous. (Yes, Maggie, I do get tired of that sometimes.)

It must also be understood, as we continue with the background, that I am a very busy man. I have shit to do. I have places to go, people to see, things to do—this money ain’t gonna make itself.

Now the story continues.

It was late one Wednesday night and I was staggering back from the Corporate Gulag/ Matrix/ Slow Death/ Job. It was almost ten in the night when I landed on the shores of Kireka. My mind was beginning to make the adjustment in frequency from Work (numb) to Home (ready to consume TV). In the transition it usually makes a quick analysis of the prospects the next day holds: Have I cleared my workload or will tomorrow be excruciating? Do I have any airtime left? Is there toothpaste at home? Etc.

It was during this process that I discovered that the last shirt to be ironed in Chez Baz was at that very moment resting on my weary back.

I had no ironed shirts at home.

Bachelor Blues, they call them.

Now, the more mature gentleman would hurry home urgently. He might even prompt the boda to go faster (Is it inappropriate to whip your bodaman and say “Giddyup”?) because he is eager to redeem at least one shirt from the basket and iron it before cara fires. But not Scruffy Slick.

I think my lethargic footdragging became even slower. My only response to the discovery that I had nothing to wear was, “Oh.”

Did I mention that I was at the Kireka stage? There are men around the area who sell clothes. I had never noticed them before because, as I explained, fuck fashion, but this time, I had reason to regard these stalls with more than sweeping disdain.

This could be the solution.

I ambled over (still sluggish and tired, but less wretched) to the vendor. Our conversation was in Luganda but since some of you do not know the language, (and since I am still hoping to get another link-up from Joshua. Munange as you threw me out!) I shall render the discussion in Ebonics, a colourful semi-English dialect I came across on TV the other day.

Self: Yo, dawg. Sup wit these here shirts?
Vendor: You wanna shirt? Ima hook yo ass up wit a dope shirt.
Self: Yo, don’t gimme nothing wack, dawg, you know wha’msayin?
Vendor: Don’t even worry ‘bout it, dawg. I got your back. Check dis shit out.
Self: Hmm. I’m not too sure about this.
Vendor: Dawg, trust me. This shirt is the bomb. The mad phat jonnie blaze Bombay
shit!
Self: Aight. I’ll take three so I won’t have to iron until the weekend.

And then I summoned the boda, and, not caring whether it was appropriate or not, whipped him and said “Giddy up”.

When I got home, however, and was able to look at the shirts in the light, I began to develop some doubts. Some misgivings began to make themselves apparent. There was disquiet in the soul, there was turbulence in the spirit. Not so much because the shirts just purchased were not the usual, i.e. plain, but because even with my challenged sense of fashion I could sense that something was wrong with them.

I suspected perhaps, they may be… possibly, there was a possibility that they were… that they could be… ugly.

I needed to consult experts in the field. I know I like to rant about phone cameras, but they have their uses. I laid the shirts out on the couch, snapped a few pictures and MMSed them to various fashionable people, seeking opinions on their aesthetic status.

• Let’s forget this ever happened.
• You could always use it to dust the tv… what kind of TV do you have? JVC? No, don’t dust a JVC with that.
• Are you auditioning for the role of George Jefferson?
• Don’t you ever do that to me again.
• Fuuuuugly!
• Oh my God WHAT IS THAT!! AARGHH!!
• But Ernest you like joking around. Wait, you’re serious?
• Oh HELL NO. WHat the HELL IS THAT? Oh... yurgh
• I think that would pass for like a curtain, and those that are meant to be in the kitchen and not in the living room
• Looks like for conductors...