“The
Fine Print”, by M.H. Schrader
Men With Tights
I have a sure-fire method of knowing how
perturbed Mrs. Schrader is at me. I
call it the tight method. What is the
tight method? It is a barometer of a
woman’s emotional state using the number of tights to be put on one’s children.
For men with sons, this method is not
very effective. How many boys wear
tights? If your wife told you to put
tights on Johnny, would you? It is
indeed a tough call. Which is worse--a
ticked off spouse or subjecting your son to ridicule by the class bullies?
By the way, class bullies really do
exist. Educators will try to tell you
otherwise--”we don’t have any bullies in OUR school”--but the denial by
academia cannot deny the fact that, in the real world, bullies do exist. And, having grown up a dorky skinny kid, I
can verify firsthand the presence of bullies who live to pick on dorky skinny
kids. And boys in tights.
Being the father of three daughters, it
is reasonable for me to assume that my children will not be ridiculed for
wearing tights; tights are a common Mom accessory for young girls. Therein lies the problem---tights are a Mom
accessory. If Dads had their way, the
doggone things would be outlawed, banned, burned, buried, and any other thing
you can think of besides wearing them.
You see, tights are a pain in the (you know the place) to put on a
child.
So, the more tights that I have to put
on, the more my wife is annoyed, irritated, or angry with me. It’s her punishment. If none of my three girls have to wear
tights, then I figure my wife is in a really good mood. If it’s a three tights day, I must be in big
trouble. What for, I can never figure
out.
After all, I am a male, and being a male, I am inherently dense
when it come to matters of the heart.
Just a male thing I guess; my theory is that all men lack the part of
the brain that allows us to act emotionally; in short, most men are like Mr.
Spock (except without the pointy ears).
A pair of tights adds about 10 minutes to
the amount of time it takes me to dress a daughter. On a three tight day, I would either have to get up with the
roosters or my wife has to dress a couple of children, which is, of course,
what generally happens. (I must
confess--it is a rare occasion that I have to dress all three, with or without
tights. She usually dresses one, and I
the other two.) It must be a male
thing, because tights don’t slow her down--it’s one leg, two legs, presto!
Me?
Well, I fumble around trying to get their feet in the things (tights,
that is). Then I stumble around some
more as I try to figure out how to get rid of all the slack in the feet. Finally, I get the doggoned things on only
to discover that, once again, I have put them on backwards and will have to go
through the exercise once more.
I must admit, however, that after five
years, I’ve gotten a whole lot better, although I’m still not as good as Mrs.
Schrader, and never will be. And she
just can’t figure out why, either. She
keeps telling me that tights are just pantyhose for young girls. While I think that I have a really great
looking pair of hairy legs, I have never felt the necessity to show them off in
a pair of control tops. My experience
with pantyhose is going to the store and buying some for my wife.
Of course, men in the theater are known
to wear tights during productions. It’s
all part of the performance. My
experiences with the theater consist of buying popcorn, walking with great
difficulty down the aisle as I stick to the floor, spilling my Coke on myself
as the teenage girl behind me accidentally kicks me in the back of the head
(she was scared), and paying way too much to see a movie that I could watch for
free if I were to wait a year. (For a
Corey Feldman film, that would be one month.)
If I were to go to a theater where men wore tights during the
production, I would have to walk back out--I’ll try a lot of different things,
but wearing tights is not one of them!
I don’t see myself as part of any
theatrical production, either. I can’t
dance--I have the grace of a hippopotamus.
Singing? Forget it. I’ve had co-workers threaten to lock me in a
soundproof room because of my “simply lovely” singing voice. And acting?
Yeah, right. I can hardly
remember my own name, much less a whole script.
So, my opportunity to wear any tight-like
attire has been zip. And I want to keep
it that way. And I think that the same
could be said about most men I know.
(Of course, I know a few exceptions.)
The challenge, then, is how to get around
the tight dilemma. If I am thinking
about it, I will select the clothes my daughters wear. And, being a man, I keep it quite simple--sweats,
socks, and shoes. No tights. No fancy frilly stuff. No worries.
Go into any store, and you can pretty
easily guess whether a Dad or a Mom dressed a little girl. If she’s all gussied up, it was the
Mom. Dads, at least this one, do not
want to willingly experience the torture of having to dress up a child.
If I were the lord-ruler of the garment
business, the selection of clothes for kids would be sweats, sweats, and more
sweats. No dresses. No tights.
Just keep it simple.
Unfortunately, I am not the lord-ruler of
clothes. Tights do exist. And, I put
them on my daughters. Why? Well, I am a dutiful husband, and if Mrs.
Schrader says so....
It’s all part of the great institution of
marriage. The “yes, dear”
phenomenon. There is a reason why they
used to name hurricanes only after women.
A woman’s fury, that kind of thing.
It’s a beautiful morning this
morning. The sun is out, the birds are
singing, and...there are no tights! Yes
indeed, it’s going to be a great day!