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The Bad Idea Bag

Written by Bohb Blair

Friday, 16 November 2007

Fair Warning - There is no story arc, or action or payoff with this story. In fact it goes nowhere, slowly.

The worst thing about the Bad Idea Bag is that all my favorite clothes are in there. You see, the issue isn’t that these are clothes I hate. Quite on the contrary, they are clothes that I love and can’t seem to convince myself not to wear when presented with them as an option.

I have a segregated closet. Things far to the left are items I either don’t, or know I should rarely, wear. My kilt. My far too big overalls. My union jack underwear. The military cook’s uniform. These things I know are bad ideas, yet they can stay in the closet because my intellectual powers will inform me of inappropriate wearage situations. Moving to the right you have some utilitarian numbers. The jeans I use when I’m working on my bike, the mandatory comfy sweat pants, miscellaneous average shirts and pants that flesh out the flesh coverings. The things we wear when our favorites have already been worn that week. From there you have the actual favorites. These items are the jeans that fit you just right, that shirt that makes you feel great, you know. If you don’t, go buy yourself a pair of excruciatingly expensive jeans and you’ll soon have something in this category. On the far right are my PJ’s (yes I have PJ’s, wanna fight about it?) and my belts. The belts designate the end of my closet real estate, hanging there leathery as they do.

The issue is the small section between my favorites and the PJ’s. That tiny sliver of the closet. The Center of Attention clothes. These items, too extravagant or themed or bizarre in some way to be a standard favorite… but in the deep recesses of honesty these are the true favorite items. The issue is these clothes are quite polarizing, to my fans, the world at large, to me. You see, you gotta FEEL it when you wear Center of Attention clothes. And sometimes you FEEL it in the morning (I love feeling it in the morning), but the power often gives way upon arrival at your destination, far enough removed spatially that a change of outer garment is not possible. Or maybe you went super thematic, but then somebody bummed you out in the morning and there you are stuck dressed as a Military Police fashionista or Rodeo Cowboy and feeling a bit silly. So, when I’ve had multiple bad experiences with a particular item of clothing it has to move from the Center of Attention sliver, to the Back of the Closet. And the Back of the Closet is safe for most situations… except…

There are certain items that hit me when my willpower is low. I can’t say ‘No’ to them. They may reside in the back of the closet, but my hand snakes back there and grabs hold. Despite the fact that I know they don’t fit, they fall off from being too baggy, are far too tight, look horrible on me, have a hole in the pocket that purposefully loses my favorite (albeit small) things and just generally never make me happy. I wear them anyway. Something had to be done. Thus, the Bad Idea Bag.

The Bad Idea Bag had to be invented to create delay in the dressage (not equestrian) process. I found that multiple things had to happen. The clothing had to be out of sight (and therefore out of mind as the saying goes). The clothing had to be a pain in the ass to retrieve, and lastly the clothing had to have geographic distance between it and myself. Now, in case you are concerned that I’m Fed Ex’ing myself clothing or commuting to another county closet do not fear, the distance required turned out to be approximately 60’.

With these factors in place the Bad Idea Bag was an institution that had been solidified.

In reality it is no more than an oversize gym bag, zipped shut and thrust into the storage area of my building. But in the proverbial world of morning garmenting it might as well be in Antarctica. The concept of finding the storage locker key, going outside and down the stairs to the storage area, navigating the dankness, let’s admit – it’s a little creepy in basement storage areas – and retrieving this bag, and digging for some remembered treasure of apparel would be a rare occurrence, a ludicrous pursuit at any hour – but unheard of in the AM, all of us know this will rarely happen.

Although, I’m writing this story because it did.

An item escaped; a pair of pants/trousers/slacks. They went to the Bad Idea Bag, and they came back.

You see, I was dressing for an occasion. The occasion was at a hipster club and I found my outfit options distinctly lacking. I desired to not wear jeans, but all my favorite pant options at the moment were jeans. I was lost. Then there was a faint image in my head… didn’t I have a pair of black pants, rockstar lowslung, tight with a flared boot cut… embroidered green foliage up each leg… where did they go… and then I remembered. They had been cursed to the Bad Idea Bag. Ostracized to the exterior of wardrobe. My memory could not recall why they were sent away, what had these pants done?

I went out to the storage space, I retrieved the bag, I did all the horrifyingly annoying things it required to get the entire bag back into my bedroom. Inside I found the pants in question. They were just as I remembered. I slipped them on. They were a little loose in the waist, but otherwise a good fit. I dressed myself, paired them with my most rocking boots. They looked great. I was suspicious. Something must be awry. The pants would not have gone to the Bad Idea Bag without some grave issue. Something that could quite literally bite me in the ass later in the evening. Granted the pockets were oddly shallow, but that couldn’t have been issue enough to send them away. The waist was so low slung my pubes practically showed, but certainly THAT’S not negative. What could it be? I threw caution to the wind and wore the pants out.

They were a huge hit. Compliments were received. Embroidery upon pant leg was stroked. Beautiful women demanded that I show off my pants to them and allow them to fawn over me. The pants in one evening catapulted themselves back from the Bad Idea Bag and into the powerful sliver of Center of Attention clothes. They say it wasn’t possible, but you can’t repress the pants.

p.s. with the exception of ironing or pants press, in which case in times of wrinkle you can indeed re-press the pants. But I was referring to a more proverbial concept of repression.

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