This postHell hath frozen over. Indeed, verily, the end of the world is nigh, when the earth will reel to and fro like a rocker at the hands of a three-year-old, when the moon will drip with blue blood, when Elvis will come out of hiding and Atlantis will rise from the depths for one final time.
I bought flip-flops.
Not just that, but I also bought a bunch of short-sleeved polo/button-up shirts (admittedly less than earth-shattering, but hold on), t-shirts (have you written a will yet?), and jeans (you really might want to call up your ecclesiastical leader and start confessing now while there’s still time left).
You see, when I arrived in Kansas at our family reunion last week, I realized that my usual stock of clothes was grossly inadequate for life at a waterpark. Like a light bulb on the brain, I saw my path before me. In fact, the concentric red circles made it easy, and so I found myself at Target with my mom and two sisters.
Now, you’re probably thinking at this point that the female influence was what pushed me over the edge, and that I spent those forty-five tagging along while the women threw trendy new clothes in my shopping cart. Ha! This, my friends, is why the cows are coming home. My mom and sisters chose only a single item (the flip-flops, which I’d been planning on purchasing anyway), but the rest was pure 100% Ben. But then again I’m not sure I was entirely in my right mind, so maybe it was 60% Ben and 40% insanity spilling over from the long car ride to Kansas.
At any rate, while checking out shorts that wouldn’t be too short and yet wouldn’t be so long that I would get mistaken for a low-riding skateboarder, I remembered that it had been around three years since I last bought clothes. Yes, for the last three years I’ve worn the same four shirts (three colored, plus one white for Sundays) and the same two or three pairs of pants. Laundry is my middle name.
Was. After this mid-summer crisis, I am a new man. I won’t be prancing around in those shorts any time soon, mind you, since we’re not allowed to wear shorts down at Special Collections, and the flip-flops are dratted uncomfortable to walk in for more than two steps, but I’m afraid I will no longer be recognizable two miles off by my attire. (Fear not, I have not discarded my distinct, brand-name gait.)
The real question is, am I really Ben? I don’t know. I could’ve been abducted by aliens in Kansas (stranger things have happened there) and replaced by a clone with vastly different personality programming. I could be an impostor. Considering my recent behavior, this doesn’t seem too unlikely. I need to go find my real self and bring him back before this one takes up surfing or gets a navel piercing or goes skydiving in the Andes.
And for those of you who are wondering what on earth I’m talking about, see my Clothes make the man post from a year and a half ago. And then weep for the old Ben who has been buried in the loose detritus of the past.
