Ties that don’t bind
I watched a man leaving my office building the other day. He had that frustrated look in his eyes. Something was not going well; or maybe several things combined to set off his day; or maybe his whole life was wrong. In any case, he emerged from the revolving door, grumbling to himself and grabbing for his necktie. It came off in his hand. It was a clip-on tie.
For most guys, the necktie is a necessary evil, an implement of torture designed by sadistic eunuch fops (French, I’m guessing) to homogenize the male business attire. I have spent much of my adult life avoiding the necktie. In fact, part of the reason I went into science as a career was the relaxed wardrobe. I wear jeans and t-shirts to work. Sometimes I’ll wear a polo shirt – that's dressing up! I work around men and women with the most brilliant minds of my discipline. They wear t-shirts with cartoon drawings of fossil insects and dinosaurs, caffeine molecules and humorous slogans like, "Obey gravity, it's the law!" So intense is my disdain for the necktie that in college I considered a career in oceanography so that I could spend my days in a bathing suit. You don't get farther from a suit coat and tie than that!
Okay, so back to the guy with the clip-on tie. I can honestly say that I have never before seen a grown man in this buttoned down city of Washington, D.C., wearing a clip-on tie. It is simply not done around here. I will admit that I have on occasion worn a clip-on tie myself. I had one when I was a kid and my son has one now, but that's because formal clothing will not stick to little boys. Dress clothes on a boy are like fried eggs on a Teflon pan: they'll fall right off if you tilt them to just the right angle. A real necktie on a small boy can be a dangerous thing, especially when he's playing around farm equipment or other large mechanized machines – drawbridges, elevator shafts, that sort of thing. The clip-on tie acts like a quick disconnect device. You need to be able to pull that tie right off in an emergency situation.
In a sense, I suppose that’s what the clip-on tie guy was doing. He needed to get that tie off in a hurry and off it came, just as it was designed to do. There is something intensely liberating about removing a necktie and undoing that top button of the shirt after a bad day or even a good day. You can almost hear the rush of fresh air being delivered to your very soul. The more I think about the clip-on tie guy, the more I admire him. His job requires that he wear a necktie, but no one told him he can’t wear the much-maligned yet remarkably efficient clip-on variety. Given his druthers, I’m guessing he's a jeans and t-shirt guy just like me. As soon as he goes home, I’ll bet he slips into a “Don’t make me open this can of Whoop Ass!” t-shirt.
I’m wearing mine right now.
10:56:21 PM  Stories
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