Would you accept a pony instead?

and yes I do have that hanging in my cube.

The other day at work I had mentioned my 9th wedding anniversary coming up and of course as per custom my co-workers congratulated me. After the first sentence you are probably wondering what the title has to do with this post. Well let’s get into that.

Coming back from lunch one of my co-workers clarified that I was going to be married for nine years. I confirmed his statement. He then asked me why I where shoes like I’m a high schooler still. For a moment I was taken aback.

Let’s get some things out of the way, this gentleman may not be old enough to be my grandfather, but he is older then my father. He has long hair in a pony tail. probably in in his mid 50′s maybe pushing early 60;s – all in all age doesn’t matter to me much, he is a man like any other.

For a moment I was just dumbfounded. I look down at his feet and he had brown wingtips on, but they were scuffed and aged for a few years. Something with dress shoes that I would never wear anything that beat up out in public for that shoe style. I used to always wear dress shoes when I was consulting, but since I’m in the office all day I wear something more befitting to my work and being on my feet more often then I was when I was consulting.

How do you explain to this gentleman that I value my personal comfort when occasions allow for it then any false bravadoes of style? That generationally the wing tips don’t fit most people in their late 20′s early 30′s like they did twenty to thirty years ago. That fashion slaves no longer need to exist to the level in business that the older generation once believed. Even IBM employees don’t wear suits and ties to work any more.

I left it with that line that they were comfortable and that’s why I wear them. I didn’t add that my dress shoes don’t look like they are falling apart and 4 months past the need a good polishing.

In the end – I don’t understand what that has to do with being married for 9 years.

I assume these would be a more fitting style according to him for a guy married 9 years then the shoes pictured above (the style I normally buy):

Ug.

Anyways I’ve been happily married now for 9 short years and hopefully will stay that way into I’m just a memory in everyone’s eye and someone’s whose thoughts only exist in the archive.org wayback machine.

I love my wife with all of my heart, there are the trials and tribulations that go with any marriage and being the same person for over a decade. However we persevere and go one (though we still argue about copyright law – HEATEDLY). We will manage to get through and stay in blissful debate and wonderful marriage until our dying day.

I will however still wear the shoes I like and not the ones befitting a certain age or social economic structure.

In high school I was not the most popular kid in school – but which blogger or Internet professional was? Maybe the current crowd of kids – but not the ones that graduated over a decade ago. Man I’ll really hate when that becomes two decades. Back on topic. I was accused of having dandruff. I did not have dandruff then nor do I have dandruff now, but I fell prone to one of the greatest follies of the lower caste which was trying to be like them. I used lots of hair gel in school – Paul Mitchell’s hair gel to be specific – and by the end of the day I always had white flakes in my hair. Of course the flakes were gel and not a scalp issue. I knew this then.

I attempted to use mousse – which was my hair stay in place product of choice for the longest time. I also occasionally used hairspray. While mousse and hairspray generally left less flakes at the end of the with the cost being not holding as well as gel – it was always the same outcome.

Today at the end of the day (I was home 99% of the day running out only to the store) my hair was full of white flakes. The reason being that I have a reactive habit of constantly running my hands through my hair. It is more prevalent when I have long hair (part of the reason I abhor pony tails) but I also do it with my recently shaved head (it does have some hair hence the gel).

Whatever reason I didn’t add two and two together all those years ago and this added to my list of reasons why I was further down the social caste chain. So this is more of a rant against my personal use of hair care products, but it needed to be said.