The ironing story – hint: this is not about irony. that’s a different topic and behooves one to look up the meaning of the term before using it.
Anyway, TFG posits a question, and I have a a couple of funny stories about it. Ironing.
The first was a few years ago. It was what I’d call a “mid-range” hotel, and at the time, the spare phone jack over the desk was a touch of class, back when us road warriors used modem to wire up for mail and web work.
So I ambled down to the front reception area to meet a co-worker for a bit of breakfast at the ole truck stop, and another one of my friends, from Austin, temporarily bereft of her husband, catches one sight of me, forgoes breakfast and begs my shirt off my back so she can iron it. Seems I looked a little wrinkled. Looked like I just pulled it out of a suitcase. Oddly enough, I did. Being so far from home, she needed some male to dote on, and I was the target. Can’t say I noticed much, but I take my casual appearance very seriously.
Another time, some how I’d left home without a second change of clothes. The person I was staying with took it upon herself to wash – and iron my precious Hawaiian shirt.
My clothes, whenever possible, should never have to suffer through the hot steel of an iron.
It’s a mission statement, as much as I’ve got one. To be sure, in the darkest days of winter, I’ve got a number of nice dress shirts, usually all-cotton, with nappy little button-down collars, and I’ll throw on a bolo tie to spiff it all up. Opera gear, dress-up, and the ubiquitous Uvalde Tux.
Get them shirts done at the cleaners.
Which, oddly enough, sent me on another search. This I couldn’t believe, a term that wasn’t on the inter-web: Your search – “Uvalde tux” – did not match any documents.
A Uvalde Tux is named for a little town in South Texas, heart of the J. Frank Brush Country. I don’t even know where I picked up the moniker, but it’s tux jacket and shirt, bolo or other western tie, jeans and boots. Jean have to be Levi or Wrangler. And that term didn’t show up at first. Stumped ’em. Huh. And here, I thought everyone knew the term.
That publicity still is more than ten years old, but it covers the idea pretty good. My day-to-day wear, my precious and obnoxious shirts, all of that should never have contact with an iron. It’s not good for the clothes. Consider it aggressively casual.
Two meat Tuesday
It’s really all about style. What sells, what doesn’t move. What parts work, what parts don’t work. I had a note for a horoscope, the bread and butter (and most volume received) for this site, and I figured that note didn’t so much belong in a scope as much as a reminder to myself.
As the sage man once observed, “You don’t learn anything the second time you’re kicked by a mule.”
“…Such inordinate and low desires,
Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts.
Such barren pleasures, rude society
As thou art matched withal and grafted to…”
Shakespeare’s Henry IV, I (III.ii.12-5)
At the coffee shop:
Subtitle: I’ll play.
Her: And you’re an asshole in the morning, before you’ve had coffee.
Me: When did you wake up with me?
Her: In your dreams.
Me: I think I would remember that….
Her: (Rolling her eyes.) Everyone is an asshole before they’ve had their coffee.
Pesky business dealings:
This is just part of the end-of-the-year news, pesky little details like bookkeeping. Final payment to the old credit card processing service, I was with them for more than 10 years, and they still stuck it to me, especially since last summer. No fault of mine, just the increase in fraud, and basically, it’s all mail-order here.
Then, in answer to the unasked question, the PayPal problem? The new payment gateway does allow for recurring charges to be set up – like subscriptions. But the minimum is $5. Plus, each monthly bill generates one hardcopy I have to file. Securely. And manually execute a batch each month. Then print receipts, and then securely file in some order? I have enough paperwork, as it is. Workload triples, and income doesn’t go up?
Maybe you hate it, but for my dollars – and for that price point? I’m sticking with what I got for now. Got a better idea? Please, drop me a line, I’d love to hear it.
More end of the year material:
Numbers are not looking good. On certain occasions, I just hate computers, always there with nothing but facts.
The good news is that the skeleton for next year is locked and loaded. If I can just finish up this month’s round of horoscopes…
Feedback:
Universal approval? Close as it gets. After that coffee shop exchange, there was another. I was walking along, a Bass Pro catalog stuck in my pocket, and an Aquarius lad does the, “Hey Kramer, I’m back in town,” bit.
We paced each other and shared a little conversation, about music, art, the function and position of the artist, and odd shifts at the coffee shop, where I see him from time to time.
What’s funny?
Like many, I didn’t have anything to write about today.
