I hear treble
I returned home from surgery last Saturday and once home could not find loose-fitting clothes to wear. Ironically, all I found was a couple of XL size “COVID-19 vs Everyone” t-shirts my daughters had bought for a photoshoot that we had never got to use. I did get to use these in spite of the irony of the situation.
So, we did the next best thing that all gentlemen will do. Raid their wife’s walk-in closet. Years back someone had bought my wife an extra-long women’s nightgown with a big “Treble” music symbol on it with the message “I hear treble”. And it fit me well, and there I had found my day 1 nightshirt, wandering around all day and night in it.
As my recovery is slow, I had a need for a few more such nightgowns to rotate daily. A search on Amazon for “100% cotton nightgowns” brought men’s nightgowns and robes but the description from the vendors varying with misleading fine print said that these were actually 70% polyester and 30% rayon, etc. It was interesting to see several of the vendors did this to get in on the search results and to get you to buy their stuff. It was hard to find natural fibers like 100% cotton and the vendors mostly wanted to sell their plastic yarn. It is no difference between these and the few disposable plastic water bottles that we throw away into the recycle bin.
Finally, I found a ton of choices in the women’s section. Hanes had a wide choice of 100% cotton night gown’s one-size XL’s that fit me even better than the “I hear treble” one’s. I ended up picking a couple of reds and a few blacks - the reds were cheaper and I would have picked these up in any other color if it were any cheaper and they had it in stock.
And talking of color - the modern world and its marketing biases on clothing colors like blue for boys, pink for girls, etc. It’s funny that just 100 years ago most people wore white or black since it was cheaper to make and the aristocracy and the royals used pink, purples, blues, and reds because they could afford to do so. Just a class system.
I wonder if I went into work in one of these nightgowns (not hidden half on a remote screen) how would this be taken? Would the teams and businesses I work with still engage me or work with me? One would never know as we adjust ourselves to the norms in the market so that we could survive, but it is a shame.