today i went to wal mart



Its the seasons of weddings and convocations and i have a look to deal with such formalism,i call it debauched baptists,black tie and white shirt and one of three ties i own. the look can be compiled in thrift stores, and it looks good-if a little severe. the thing is that every time i wear it it requires a new white shirt.

White Shirts require cleaness, they are so pure a garment and so proper for the ritualism of these ocassions. There is something to crisp cotton. something cool and wonderful and slightly sexual . It may be that it was the garment to wear to preform the Lords Supper when i was a deacon, it might be because of the acolytes and altar servers at mass, who always look like they are afraid of fucking up. It may be that its the uniform of the Sunday Farmer and the Monday Capitalist. All of this being true, if it is clean and starched the white shirt and black pants work.

I eat at these events, and drink so these garments become stained. I sweat and I dance, and these shirts become dingy. The pants stink of smoke and sweat but after a chemical bath at the dry cleaners they are clean. The shirts never get clean enough, and often I have to discard them after I wear them two or three times.

This means that I have to buy a new one in my regular harvesting of second hand stores. The thing is that I looked and I looked for weeks, until the date of the first convacation snuck up on me. So its wednesday, the bash is on thursday and I am broke. All of my moral hatred of Wal Mart and I crumbled. I walk in there, its 36 above and all of the daddies are there with kiddies, there is screaming and yelling and i am looking for a garment out of season.

No workers arround , and those who know it all are useless. I have to look four or five times before I see the 6 long sleeved white shirts. Two are filthy with stained collars and cuffs, dirtier then anything at Goodwill. Two do not fit my belly,and one does not fit my bull neck, In the back though,overlooked is a size 18 neck, 36 sleeve and 34 shoulders. It fits like a glove and it is clean. I buy it and flee from the place with a head ache.