I Wub You

If I may label myself (with the accuracy of a laser guided bloodhound, barracuda, or heat seeking missile) I would say that I'm probably the most romantic, soft hearted, open minded, lovey dovey, fancy pants, least bitter, most appropriately emotional individual wandering the face of the Earth today. Ask my friends and family. They would certainly agree.  But even I'm not falling for this Valentine's day bullshit. Now don't get me wrong, I always appreciated the chalky taste of conversation hearts, especially if they were given to me by one of the girls in my class who "developed" early.  Don't look at me like that.  It's not pedophilia if you're also 12 years old.  That night my mom would make heart shaped meat loaf.  It was always delicious. I would cover it with ketchup.  She probably thought I was making it red in the spirit of the holiday.  Little did she know I was pretending that I was partaking in the forbidden delicacy of human heart.  The ketchup obviously... oxygen rich blood.  What do you expect?  I went to Catholic school.  Themes of violence and horror were frequent.  I wonder how she would have felt about Valentine's Day meatloaf if she knew that she was actually fostering my juvenile fascination with cannibalism.  Suck on that Esther A. Howland.

But Valentine's Day was, from it's very inception, nothing more than federally mandated affection.  And while it is a boon for the fine people at Applebee's because it's the only night of the year where every other restaurant is so booked up that people are forced to go there, as an official American holiday it's still the illegitimate creation of some of the biggest bastard sons o' bitches to wandering the face of the Earth today, politicians (Was that a run on sentence? Grammar police, get at me).  Admittedly, I'm skipping a few steps.  There was of course the decree of a pope back in like late 400 something A.D. celebrating the life and death of one of several possible martyrs.  But ultimately, Valentine's Day was created to fill the consumer gap between Christmas and Easter.  In short, people weren't buying enough shit.  Well, people in the U.S. weren't buying enough shit.  We don't care what Iraqis or Portugese are buying.  Probably sand.

I'm not lobbying against love.  I'm just saying that if you participate in a corporate holiday then you're indisputably a sheep and you're giving into the man.  You might as well just line up at the post office and get on the next bus to the federal internment camp.  Because that's what's coming next.  That's right.  If you celebrate Valentine's Day, you hate freedom.  Quite a moral conundrum, isn't it you right wing neconservative whack jobs?  If you love someone, I've read somewhere that it's probably a great idea to express it daily in some form.  Tell them.  Give them a hug.  Make them an egg sandwich for breakfast.  Don't read into that.  I literally mean an egg sandwich.  To my knowledge it's not the name of an elaborate sex move.  And then every once in a while make a big celebration of your love.  Write a letter.  Hug them twice.  Make them an Egg Sandwich for Dinner.  That one is what you think it is.  But it shouldn't be forced.  If your major concern is that grocery stores don't sell a large selection of red candy year round, your fears have been addressed. Everyone loves Starburst. Even Iraqis.

Truth is, all this corporate stuff just casts a shadow over the otherwise honest and sincere acts of love that might be taking place anyway.  And that's a shame.  I have to protect the identities of the innocent.  But I know a guy who wrote a Valentine card to his wife after he died in which he threatened to haunt her by switching lights on and off and rubbing her butt.  Just another in a long life of loving actions.  Take notes Hallmark.  If you're not willing to become a "goast" to prove it, it just isn't love.

If Fashion Were Puke, It's in My Mouth a Little Bit Now

WTF?

When I first saw these, I panicked worse than in the first grade when I thought I could save time by taking my pants off without taking my shoes off, botched the procedure, and had to waddle back to class, pants strangling my shoes, for faculty assistance.  But after two Xanax, a Valium, and half a bottle of Jack Daniel's (presently, not in the first grade) I was able to recenter myself, get my wits about me, and process what I was seeing.  I realized, just before jabbing a complimentary spork from Taco Bell into my eyeballs, that it didn't matter if they were selling these pajamajeans as long as no one on earth buys them.  "We'll let the free market solve this little problem."  That's what I confidently said to myself with patriotism in my heart and the pride of capitalism coursing through my veins.  But just to cover my bases I also went ahead and prayed to several hundred gods from any religious tradition or cult about which I could find an entry on Wikipedia.  Three short months later, I've lost all hope in the free market, humanity, religion (except Scientology), and the future.  I'm a shell of the man I once was.  I haven't slept in weeks.  Every time I close my eyes... I see them.

I just have a few points of consideration I would like to offer the 26 adult women and 1 adult male that I've seen wearing these things, as well as the cross section of people that these 27 messengers of the apocalypse represent.  Seeing them in person, in clear view of the general public, was exponentially more upsetting than seeing them as a digital image on TV.  I don't remember exactly where I was on 9/11.  But I do remember, to my unending horror, the first time I saw these denim colored sweatpants in all their faux-riveted glory.  Since the unapologetic wearers of these atrocities are essentially the face of an epidemic, I feel it only right to give them a cohesive identity.  Something catchy, accurate, and descriptive.  I learned from TV that the key to making a memorable label is alliteration.  Thus, they will be called The Teratoma 27.


1.  If they're that comfortable, wear them at home.  Exclusively.  And preferably only in an emergency.  Like if your washer and dryer break, all the laundromats in your town have been burnt to the ground due to their unfortunate proximity to exploding meth labs, and you've worn all your other clothes to the point that they are literally no longer wearable (Science has shown that a pair of normal jeans can be worn 15 months without washing).  And you've also torn down the curtains, cut swatches of fabric from the couches, and humanely "processed" the coats of house pets to cover the essentials.  Then, and only then should you even begin to think about wearing your pajama jeans.  Even these thoughts should be accompanied by great trepidation.

2.  There are some things on this planet that just should not be combined.  Jeans and sweatpants have been on this list since time immemorial.  It's baffling to me that this natural law was violated.  And not only violated but marketed.  And not only marketed but purchased.  And worse, worn.  I can only assume that whoever invented these enjoys a nice sheltered life somewhere upon the Autism spectrum.  And not the good kind of autism either.  Other examples of things that should not be mixed: canned tuna in olive oil and ice cream.  The gamete of anyone from the cast of Jersey Shore and any other substance that might potentially yield life especially other gamete.  Women and professional basketball.  But I have heard that the best way to clean pajamajeans is to combine ammonia and bleach.  Don't worry.  That sensation that feels like your lungs are melting and drowning you in your own blood... that just means it's working.  (Disclaimer:  Mixing ammonia and bleach will probably be the last thing you ever do, so don't.  And if you do, you can't sue me.  I'm pretty sure that counts as a legally bulletproof disclaimer.)

3.  Wearing of this blight upon human existence calls into serious question one's quality of character.  People who wear these jeans lack integrity.  In short, they are liars.  How can someone who isn't even honest about their rivets and/or jean pockets be trusted in any capacity at any point in the future.  I'm a person who believes that even a murderer can be reformed.  But for The Teratoma 27 and like minded individuals, there is no absolution.  No one will marry you.  Ever.  Not even with a prenup.  And if any part of you believes that you're fooling anyone, you're also lying to yourself.  This inevitably irritates the hell out of the famous pirate Shakesbeard who said, "To thine own self, be true."  If Liz Lemmon has taught us anything, it's that you can't have it all.  Just as you can not simultaneously have a raging methamphetamine addiction and a normal sleep schedule, you also can not be that comfortable and trick people into believing that you're a rational human being.  The Romans spent the entirety of their empire trying to figure out how to be stylish slobs as well as trying to discover new holes in which to make sex after they, as a society, grew bored with the traditional 9 points of penetration.  Look where it got them.  Why must mankind always ignore the lessons of history in favor of their own peril?  When will we stop trying to fly so close to the sun on wings of wax?

4.  Finally, I have a short list of things you could buy for $39.95 + $7.95 that aren't total abominations in the biblical sense of the word.

1/6 of a stuffed armadillo.  It's a small price to pay to have to have in your living room the animal most often splattered across Texas highways.  It's a great conversation piece and could probably be used as an object of meditation... something about evidence of the impermanence of life, even if your whole body was covered in fancy pants armor loosely modeled after the dimples of a golf ball.

A couple of these wolf shirts.  as far as levels of awesome and social appropriateness are concerned, this fine garment is the quintessential opposite of pajama jeans.  If you buy two shirts you get 6 wolves and two moons.  We don't even have two moons on earth.  But you could have two in your top drawer.  How have you not already entered your credit card info?

A nice claw hammer.  To be used on oneself in the event of pajamajean sighting.  With any luck, the resulting head injury will leave you with a case of one of the good kinds of autism.  Experiment with both sides of hammer, striking cranium until desired effect is achieved.