Sunday morning coming down

I hope Ellery Chun was buried in a loud, vulgar Aloha shirt.

Let's give him credit: his invention is better than a suit and tie in the tropics. Faint praise, I know, but what else is there to say?

I was thinking about this the other day when I was putting on a button-down Hawaiian shirt. What's with that? Maybe it would look good with a bolo tie.

The things are disgusting, and I wear them all of the time. I'm trapped in a vicious cycle: my entire wardrobe seems to be printed so people think that's what I like. Guess what I got for Christmas? Hey, they can't give me ties, so how about something almost as good.

Years ago, I considered going around in linen suits, but that seems way too expat. It brings to mind the Hunter S. Thompson story about colonial Brits sipping gin on a veranda and lofting golf balls into the slum below.

At least the word is out: cotton only. Well, OK, maybe a little plastic thrown in so it doesn't wrinkle. Those synthetics don't breathe; it's like slipping into a rubber suit. S & M with flowers. Sometimes people forget. The world being what it is, the cotton wears out immediately and the dinosaur drippings last forever.

Of course brother Jas hunts for the strangest designs which results in a few that are almost acceptable. I like the subtle ones, the pattern you don't even notice until you suddenly have to ask: "Umm, are those snails on your shirt?"

He gave me several just before I came to Saipan, purchased in a fire sale. The smoky smell wouldn't go away until he anchored them in the lagoon with a rock and let the tide work its wonders. Another happy result was massive fading. The company, long defunct, was owned by someone we'll call the Bad Luck Businessman. It seems like every business he owned eventually ended with a fire. Tragic. Oh, that's what made me think of the Gahan Wilson cartoon above. It's captioned "It's a good thing Effie likes these little funerals, she's had such awful luck with her pets."

Because I like football, my wife presented me with a couple of prints of football helmets. How tropical. What's worse, one was entirely filled with the Dallas Cowboys and they take up a distasteful amount of space on the other. Obviously, I can only wear them to gloat when the Cowboys have a Really Bad Year. Being polyester, they should last into the next century.

There's a glimmer of hope, though. My oversized son has taken to raiding my closet. I just hope he keeps his hands off of the cotton.