Hanging Onto Sanity by a Very Thin Thread: Why I Despise Clothing

This was submitted to the Colby College school newspaper, but was rejected by the editor, because it wasn’t “serious” enough.

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Wallowing in depression brought on by the fact that I have been a student of higher education for almost three weeks and have learned no more than how to say “Hello” in German, how cells divide, and the fact that while the toilets may be reserved for only one gender when dealing with urination and defecation, either gender may use them when vomiting, I came to the most profound realization I have had in…well, actually, I’ve never had a profound realization before. I realized that I utterly despise clothing. How, you might be wondering, could I despise something as deeply ingrained into our society as clothing? Well, the reason is quite simple: clothing was originally made to protect us from the elements and keep our oh-so private parts out of view, but over the years clothing has become a superficial obsession, which devours large portions of our time and money, and which, although it continues to protect us from the elements, definitely doesn’t cover up nearly as many private, or not so private, parts as it once did, which is one change in the status of clothing that I thoroughly support. As I open my crust-covered eyes at 8:56AM on Monday, I am overcome with an irrepressible rage when I realize that before I go to my 9:00AM class I have to put on pants and a T-shirt. If my professors would merely let me go to class buck naked, I would be much more relaxed, even though everyone around would not be.

Clothing also costs massive amount of money; money that I could be using to purchase more important things such as NBA star bobble heads, or, considering how many sellouts there are in professional sports, actual NBA stars. The greed of the multimillionaires who own these clothing corporations amazes me. The fact that they are willing not only to charge me huge sums of money for colorful pieces of cloth, but also willing to enslave poor, starving third world children to make these pieces of cloth is utterly astounding. As greedy as I am, I would never stoop so low as to enslave poor, starving third world children, but I might stoop low enough to enslave rich, well-fed American adults, preferably rich, well-fed American adults who own multibillion dollar clothing corporations which enslave poor, starving third world children. The main reason that clothing has become far to big of a social concern, a reason that I’m sure many Colby students can understand, is that at least a couple of times a year I am forced to wash my clothing. I have to shell out $1.25, and waste at least five minutes, just so that my clothing “doesn’t smell,” isn’t “covered in food stains,” and isn’t “harboring dangerous bacterial infections.” And unlike the last eighteen years of my life, in college I don’t have a mom to do my laundry for me. This is why I’ve decided to offer the considerable salary of 89 cents and the honor of being around me everyday to anyone willing to be my surrogate mom. Your responsibilities would be doing my laundry, changing my bed sheets, and, of course, telling me that I’m special and wonderful my own unique way.

No matter how much I try, I realize that I will never convince everyone the time and money we spend on clothing, not the mention the time and lack of money that child laborers are forced to spend on it in order to accommodate our relatively frivolous concerns, proves the evil nature of clothing. Which is why I’ll be satisfied if I can only convince all the incredibly hot chicks to not wear clothing. Actually, now that I think about it, I’ll be satisfied if I can convince even one incredibly, no, one somewhat hot, no, one chick to not wear clothing. Unfortunately for me, as Mark Twain once said, “The finest clothing made is a person’s skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this,” but then again, as Will Ferrell said, “We’re going streaking through the quad ”