What's Wrong with Overalls?

I wasn't technically lying this afternoon when I responded to my friends' comments about my outfit with "It's laundry day." I did do laundry today, but the whole truth is that I only did one load, and there were plenty of other things I could have worn.

That's right, guys. I chose to wear overalls today.

My brown corduroy overalls are warm and comfy, and they have a big pocket in the front where I can put the things that I want to keep track of, like notebooks and pens and my phone and a Seattle's Best punch card and some Burt's Beeswax.

I like wearing overalls. Furthermore, I enjoy the words "y'all" and "reckon," and I like gettin' down to bluegrass, especially when someone's playing the spoons. But that doesn't mean I don't also enjoy Ian McEwan, Satie, and Jimmy Choos. Be as judgmental as you like, because I can find my nail clippers way faster than you.

But don't misconstrue this and think that, by wearing overalls, I'm trying to make a statement... like "I don't care what you think," or "I meditated for five hours before breakfast this morning, and my spirit guide told me my life would be more fulfilling if I gave up superficial conformist habits like dressing attractively."

The trouble with trying to subvert the dominant paradigm by dressing unfashionably or, for instance, getting an obscene, pus-excreting eyebrow piercing (you know who you are), is that, as a form of communication, it necessarily accepts the language of the dominant paradigm, reinforcing that which it attempts to destroy and blowing up in your face like a gigantic self-defeating bomb of suckiness.

One might get an eyebrow piercing in order to say "I'm a hardcore deviant punk," but the only reason one would expect it to say that is because, according to the dominant paradigm, a person with an eyebrow ring is a hardcore deviant punk.

Real radicals say "I'm a hardcore deviant punk" by hanging out at the mall, wearing Abercrombie hoodies and drinking grande vanilla lattes from Starbucks, because refusing to accept the language of the dominant paradigm is the only effective way to subvert it.

The overalls aren't saying that though. I just like them is all, and the point is... I'd appreciate it if you'd stop making fun of them, OK?