I Hope These FlipFlops Don't Make Too Much Noise By The Casket
I know I’ll step on somebody’s toes with this post but here goes. I am not what you’d call a “clothes horse.” I don’t like to shop for clothes and I don’t particularly like to dress up. I long ago accepted and welcomed the trend of dressing down when shopping (my father used to wear a tie to the grocery store) and while traveling (50 years ago, a man wouldn’t think of boarding a plane or a train without a sport coat and tie). On Sundays and during weddings, I don’t turn my nose up at people who attend church in jeans and even sweatshirts. However (you knew there had to be a “however”) I am troubled by the fact that our quest for comfort has gone too far, even for me: I can’t get used to the idea of people going to funerals and funeral visitations in their grubbies. Think about it – your reason for attending is to pay respect to the deceased and the family of the deceased. If there is one time when nice clothes are in order, this ought to be it. Instead, often the only ones dressed up are the immediate family and the corpse. I think we need to salvage at least some vestige of more formal times and I nominate any planned event where somebody is dead. I don’t deny that my feelings are part of the growing old process whereby, current customs are berated by the nicely ripened among us, but so be it.
posted by unca | 2:54 PM
7 Comments:
i cannot disagree. if there are dead people on display, dress up!
i also think it would be nice if people dressed up for church. i've noticed that whenever that position is put forward, the response is invariably to cast the pro-formal-clothes person as snobbish/exclusionary, as overly concerned with form over actual spiritual growth, etc.
but i always think to myself "would you wear that to a wedding? why to church, then?"
the bottom line is that most cultures (including ours) have the concept of "formal attire", and the idea that wearing said formal attire is a way to demonstrate respect for a person, situation, or event.
of *course* it's nice that people are in church at all, and no right-thinking person wants to exclude people based on their dress, but i still think it's nice when people extend the idea of respecting events to include church.
on the other hand, i think funerals would be a lot more entertaining if we had, like, strippers or something. or maybe a little circus (just one ring, nothing extravagant) to mitigate the depressing aspects of all that death and everything. and if one of the trapeze artists fell to his death, they'd be right there at the funeral home already -- seems like a winner all around...
Interesting idea, Bryan. Sounds like something Jack Handy would have come up with.
I always call first and find out what the dead guy is wearing.
Then I can make sure to look as good if not better than the corpse. Plus I want to make sure I don’t wear the exact same thing as the corpse. How embarrassing would that be? Then if I found out the corpse paid less money for the same suite I would be very upset.
Anyway I agree I say “No Shoes No Shirt No Stiff”
Great slogan, Blogball. I'll pass this along to the undertaker community.
blogball, you're too amusing...
i think i'm in the same curmudgeonly (sp?) state of mind in that there's a time/place for extremely informal attire, and church, weddings, and funerals are not those times/places. or job interviews. dressing appropriately (and not necessarily to-the-nines [is that a correct term?]) is a sign of respect. the area i live in is not considered very formal in dress. but *I* think there should be limits as to when one wears the torn jeans and flip-flops.
on the other hand, when i first started traveling, i used to dress in at least what's now considered business casual (some kind of jacket/nice pants). well, forget that. i dress to be comfortable on that plane now. and wear my heaviest, most comfortable, easy-to-slip-on-and-off-for-security shoes. (does this sound like "if it's convenient for ME, then it's okay?")
and this reminds me of a story that a consultant told me about her company's home office in harrisburg, pa. she said that they couldn't institue casual friday because most of the people would have to "dress up" to have it considered casual! :-)
great suggestions all around. I'm with ya on the flipflops, etc. And the slogan is a definite winner.
I'm with Bryan on the church aspect of it. I'm amazed at what people show up in at all kinds of supposedly formal events. We've kinda taken the casual friday thing a little far perhaps.
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