Posted by By Frank Scandale
Somehow, some way, my sartorial sense has waned in direct proportion to my age increasing.
I don’t say that lightly, having prided myself on staying ahead of the curve – or at least out of the spectator stands – on a reporter’s salary in the early years of adulthood.
Dating back to teen years when my fashion sense possessed the sensitivity of a jeweler’s scale, I was able to latch on to trends before they were trendy. Beatle boots. Nehru jackets. Bell bottoms followed by white carpenter pants atop a felt-covered set of Adidas sneakers. You get the idea.
Smooth.
My aunt worked at Bloomgdale’s as well, so the western shirts with snap buttons and a rack of assorted colorful other shirts and jackets tumbled into my 3-foot side closet like cakes off the conveyer belt in the classic “I Love Lucy” bakery episode. She’d pull them out like the endless scarves tied to one another that a magician would yank from his magic hat.
Adulthood brought suits and pants that weren’t pre-worn, and ties that said “Bond. James Bond” rather than “Shop. Thrift Shop.”
Like I said, smooth.
As fathers know, once the children arrive, some wicked force seeps into the picture like a paranormal spirit out of a Stephen King novel. Givenchy gives way to Any-Old-Way when it comes to clothing oneself. Getting into the car in the morning and not forgetting pants seemed to warrant a victory dance. Sometimes articles matched but that arrangement was not mandatory.
Basically, nobody really cared. You had joined the ranks of daddom, and membership brought the fashion faux pas that are the currencies of the club. The real focus was on clothing the kids properly so when they looked at photos decades from then they were not horrified to the point where they turned on you and refused to visit and care for you when you went infirm.
Which brings us to the present.
Down to what amounted to a toga, clown shoes and dress shirts more suited for the Clothing Box in the old Pathmark parking lots, necessity became the mother of intervention. A shopping intervention. Except it was self-imposed. Launched into what can only be labeled as a buying frenzy, two suits were purchased, then some shoes and a half dozen shirts. But not one item was signed off on until it went through “the hopper”.
The hopper is the daughter gauntlet, meaning no item of clothing shall be purchased prior to detailed scrutiny and subsequent signed approval by one young adult daughter through multiple text and photo exchanges under penalty of law (and death, I think) while in the dressing room. Items of clothing touched by any dads of a certain age contain this warning label similar to the ones hanging off mattresses. Check it out.
Things were going fairly well in the two-week period of my newfound purchasing prowess. Suits were vetted and procured. Dress shoes and shirts, same thing. I was feeling good, cocky even. I was wading out into the deep water without a noodle floaty and was facing one last, albeit tiny, challenge. Sneakers.
Mine had served me well but had turned the color of common brown depression glass, with a scent that would have been familiar to Ed Norton of “Honeymooners” fame. Without checking in with said daughter, I ventured into a well-known sporting goods shop and scouted out some kicks (That’s what hip dads say.) The last thing I remember before coming to was looking at the price tag of these sneakers that used to cost $2.99 in the sneaker outlet in downtown Brooklyn. I ran out of there so fast the store security figured I’d lifted the buggers.
Shortly after, I found myself at a discount shoe joint, a place where I found comfort in the colored chart that showed what percent would be discounted from the already discounted price. These were the moments dads lived for. New sneakers AND a discount.
Using one of my lifeline options, I shot a photo of a pair of practical, sturdy babies to my daughter for automatic approval and then done for the day. They were the type of shoes Bjorn Borg might have worn to wear down Jimmy Connors. I don’t actually play tennis, but if I did, these would be excellent net jumpers for when victory came my way.
Ping.
“Dad, what are those for?” came the reply. “You can’t buy those.”
Strike one.
Plan B involved a similar pair, but not as , hmmm, puffy. Puffy would be a good description.
“DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD,” came the text.
Sweat formed on my brow.
“How about these?” I ventured, sending a shot of one shoe, worthy of an ad campaign.
“I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not,” she shot back.
That was followed by a photo of something similar to what I bought in that Brooklyn sneaker outlet.
“No,” came the reply.“What are you using these for?”
“Um. The gym… and knocking around,” I tried to stand tall.
“Dad, you’ wouldn’t wear those to the gym….I get that you’re trying to save money but these sneakers are ridiculous, Dad.”
In the end, I snagged a pretty sweet pair of brand-name kicks at a very reasonable (2018) price and sashayed to the checkout counter. Next in line, I heard , “Next shoe lover, please.”
Confused, I asked the cashier, a shade older than my daughter, if she just called me a shoe lover.
“Yes. Aren’t you a shoe lover? You are here, aren’t you?” she smiled.
“Need shoes? Yes. Love shoes? Not really,” I bantered.
Then the hammer came down.
“Well,” she said, pulling out the sneakers. “You must be a shoe lover because you bought the cool shoes.”
Whooompf.
“Ha, um, funny you say that. I just had quite an exchange with my daughter about these and the ones I wanted but she rejected them,” I explained.
She smiled, like a nurse in charge of a patient looking for his pants to make a getaway from the home, and just said.” Yes, I do that with my father all the time.”
We parted ways, she secure in her daughterliness duties, me content to have a new pair of shoes and knowing as I aged further, my sartorial status would remain tip top, thanks to Kate.
Frank Scandale is a Pulitzer-winning journalist, doting dad and, apparently, a budding ‘shoe lover’.
