The wardrobe malfunction was the point

I've always had my own style in clothing. This is particularly evident when one considers the example of the outfit I bought back in 1988, shortly before high school graduation.

As I recall, my mother had decided that I didn't have enough decent clothes. This is due primarily to an attitude I still possess, that not only do clothes not make the man, the truth is that they really never had anything meaningful or relevant to say about the man in the first place. My mom's attitude lies more along the lines of, "No son of mine is going out dressed like that."

In order to see that I was appareled correctly, my mother took me to the Monroeville Mall, to visit the clothing section of J.C. Penney. Her first mistake was taking me there against my will. The second is that she told me to pick the clothes out for myself.

I picked a pair of pink pants with a matching pinstriped shirt. My defense now, when pictures surface on the Internet or at family get-togethers is that it was the 1980s. Everyone who was alive then has something to be ashamed of, even if it's just listening to Rick Astley or buying a Tiffany album on 8-Track.

Still, as my friend Liadan puts it, "The 80s is perpetually its own excuse now, but what was your excuse during the 80s?"

To be fair, I've never much fashion sense. These days I've worked it out to "Everything goes with blue jeans" and "Honey, does this look OK?" The pink pants and pin-striped shirt were in the men's section of J.C. Penny. Surely that counts for something.

And as I told my mother, "I picked the most degroding pair I could find." That's not the best reason for picking an outfit, but when your mother is yelling at you for an hour or more at a stretch, at least once a day, every day, you're going to find ways to annoy her, and damn the consequences.

Those consequences were not substantial to me because she insisted that I had to have "nice clothes" to wear to church, and I never wore them anywhere else.

It must have been a very difficult time for mom.