Fashion Contrasts

So I was at McDonald's yesterday after church, and I was somewhat amused by an extremely elderly man who shuffled in while I was stuffing my face with fries. I could tell just by looking at him that he was probably a wonderful, sweet old guy… the kind of old man anyone would be happy to have as a grandpa.

At the same time, I got a kick out of how stereotypical the guy was, with his old man hat (to keep him warm on this 85-degree day, apparently) and sports coat. He had his pants pulled up so far that he almost had to cut holes around the pockets so he could stick his arms through them.

I was telling myself that, no matter how elderly I am lucky enough to become, I will make an attempt at staying a little more fashionable than this guy.

Just as I was basking in my own fashion glory (relatively speaking, anyway), these three teens came bumbling in with an entirely different perspective on fashion. They wore knit caps (again, it was 85 degrees outside), and grungy sorts of clothes, which by itself wasn't too bizarre by my standards. But the true shock value was in their choice of ear apparel.

I've seen all sorts of various piercings over the years, and there's not much that alarms me anymore. But these guys had taken things to a whole new level of creepiness. They had taken bottle caps, like the ones you get on 20-ounce bottles of Pepsi, and embedded them into their earlobes. In other words, they poked a hole in their earlobe, and stretched the hole big enough so they could stick a bottle cap in each ear.

I've seen pictures of some tribal women who do these sorts of things with wooden disks in some of these third world nations. But I have to imagine that as soon as the National Geographic photographers leave, they probably go back to dressing normally right away.

I honestly wish I would have been brave enough to ask these guys if I could take a picture of this phenomenon, but it was actually disturbing enough that I kind of just wanted to get the heck out of there.

I hate to think about it this way, but I guess I would have to align myself a whole lot more with the geezer guy than with these kids. In fact, when I got up this morning, I subconsciously pulled my pants up a bit higher. So much for any aspirations I had of being at all hip…