On the cuff remarks

Hello and welcome, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. It's good to see you back here for another week at UOPTA. No, that doesn't stand for, "Upsets Obviously Prevent Teams' Advancements," but I imagine that's true (especially in college football where one upset can derail a team's championship hopes). Also, it says "obviously," so it has to be true. Instead, this UOPTA is where I write down some things that I had only previously thought or said aloud. It's all about changing up the medium, folks. With that, let's get right into it. (If you'd like to submit a UOPTA, just send it to ptklein@gmail.com. That's where the magic happens.)

I have to dress nicely for work more often than not. Men have a fairly limited selection of what they can wear in a business environment. There aren't too many colors involved in pants and jackets, and so we're left with few options to stand out. By "stand out," I don't mean to the point of, "There's that weirdo again." I just think it would be nice to not completely blend in with everyone else, and that's somewhat difficult. I'm not one to wear wacky ties - it's just not me - and while I'm comfortable in strange or louder socks, they're far less evident to others over the course of the day (unless your office observes Shoeless Thursdays). So I've branched out where I can and expanded my self-imposed restrictions. I broadened my shirt collection to have colors previously unseen in my closet with a nice purple one and a fairly pale pink one, for example. I tend to blend in a little less with the masses when I wear those. But there's one still largely-untapped area in which I could really make my mark: cuff links.

I realize, of course, that cuff links don't normally stand out in an elevator or when passing someone in a hallway. However, when sitting in a meeting, they definitely come into play. It's a little bit of personalizing flair, and the options are far greater than I ever realized. My boss has some of the coolest cuff links I've ever seen, including mini refrigerators with doors that actually open. My main problem with busting out into this category is that I have a whopping two shirts right now with the French cuffs needed to wear said links. I plan on getting more though because of my recent foray into this arena.

One of my coworkers gave me a bag of clothes that don't fit him anymore, many of which were worn zero to one times. He has very expensive tastes, so I thought, "Why the hell not?" Sadly, they were almost all too big on me still, but my dad and favorite brother each fit into a few of them. (I'm not calling them fat, mind you, just stating the facts.) At the bottom of the bag was a little wooden box. I opened it and found a set of cuff links staring at me. I say "staring" because they were of a kinda creepy and opalescent woman's face. I originally thought that they were Medusa, but it turned out that her hair was actually just hair and not snakes. Needless to say, they weren't very attractive. I kept them anyway for some reason and put them in a drawer.

A short time later, I was at an outlet mall getting some new shirts, and I purchased the second of my two French cuff ones. The main reason for the purchase was because of some cuff links I saw while browsing the store. They were perfect: tiny little hourglasses with sand (or a sand-like substance) that really moved from one side to the other. How cool is that? (Before you answer, pretend that you're as anal about time and being early as I am. Ready? Ok, now how cool is that? Big difference.)

I couldn't wait to bust them out, and I wore my new shirt and cuff links shortly thereafter, showing everyone in my office the moving grains of whatever. I got a great reaction from them, and wearing cuff links at all made me feel a little cooler and more grown up. It didn't hit me until I was taking them off later that day, to be honest. When doing that, I felt like my actions were mimicking those of a cool character in a movie or old tv show. Has there ever been an unsuccessful character with cuff links? Usually they're shown with tuxedos and denoting a level of classiness reserved for the cooler characters, so I was digging that vibe. In fact, I wore the non-Medusa lady-heads the next week just because I liked that feeling. I even grew to appreciate them for their oddness, though I didn't show them off quite as much as the hourglasses. So what if they're a little creepy? At least they're opalescently creepy.

I noticed something interesting while recounting this tale. As I think I've made quite clear in this space over the hundreds of posts, I'm quite particular about the use of the English language at times. Every once in a while, someone points out that something I'm saying isn't right for one reason or another, and it usually bugs the hell out of me. I'm still upset from when my friend Dusty pointed out that "Guess what" is a command and not a question. Well, I discovered one little odd inaccuracy on my own, and I have no idea why it took me so long to recognize this one. If I may be so bold, I'm going to predict that the majority of you will say or think, "Whoa, he's right!" after reading this. Ready? Ok, check it out:

Why do we call it an hourglass regardless of how long the sand takes to go from one side to another? Technically, I was wearing fivesecondglasses on my cuffs. In fact, I'd venture to say that a very small percentage of "hourglasses" out there in the world are truly hour-long timers. How did that term stick? My best guess is that the first ones were crafted to let people know when an hour had elapsed, and then somehow it came to mean anything resembling that device. By that logic, we could still be calling cds "records." (Can I get a "Whoa, he's right!"?) Despite the term's vast inaccuracy, I'm still ok with saying that Christina Hendricks has an "hourglass figure." I hope that's fine with you.

Ok, I have an unrelated story to relate before getting to the Car Watch. Earlier this week, my lovely wife and I were in our kitchen together. I wanted to get past her to go to the trashcan, so we did the little "which way are you going" dance before I stepped to the right and went around her. A minute later I asked, "Honey, do think that people walk on the left side of sidewalks in England? Or walkways in malls?" "Hmmm, or stairways," she said while still thinking. "I don't know; that's a good question." "How do you think I can get the answer to that without asking a British person?" I wondered aloud.

As it turned out, I didn't really need any other option since I know a British person. My friend Suzanne's husband is from England, and he has a kick-ass accent to prove it. So I sent Suzanne an email asking if she could help set my mind at ease on this highly unimportant topic. Her response greatly pleased me:

Yep! It's all reversed over there. People move to the left to pass on the sidewalk or in hallways. Walking up stairs you stay to your left. Slow people on escalators stand to the left. They have signs in some airports near the escalators and walkways that say "keep left." It's very confusing for anyone from a country that drives on the other side of the road. That being said, because of the amount of American and mainland European tourists they get, they are pretty forgiving if you are on the wrong side. I've had many a dance with strangers as we've tried to move out of each other's way. You can talk and dress like a Brit, but your step aside instincts will give you away!

Thanks for clearing that up, Suzanne, and thanks for treating my bizarre questions with respect and dignity.

And with that, let's take the tube to the lift to the loo to the Car Watch.

My homey Rockabye saw this license plate recently: "ONTMOVE." I don't like it. I'm fully on board when someone wants to use the letter D in place of "the" from time to time. It's far from an auditory match, but it works. "I went to D store and I told D cashier that he forgot to give me D receipt," for example. It makes me read the whole thing in a comical accent, so that's a plus. But now try reading that with a lone T in place of each D. To me, that sounds awful and completely loses the flow and meaning of the sentence. In short, I don't like that plate.

I saw a license plate frame this week that also didn't sit too well with me. "Water employees," it told me, "Drink it right from the tap." Hold on now. Drink what right from the tap? Their consumers' water supply? Not only does that sound unsanitary, but also quite rude. On the flip side, if they're trying to be vaguely sexual like the other "Blanks do it blank" stickers and frames, then...ya know, forget it. I'm going to leave that one right where it is.

And lastly, I think it's safe to say that my favorite brother and I think alike at times. Here's part of an email he sent me about plates he saw: "BLND L8Y - Okay several problems here. First of all I hope it is blonde and not blind. That would be bad... Secondly, what is a leighty?" Well Kevin, allow me to use my Car Watch expertise to help you out here. The first word is clearly supposed to be "bland." And a l8y is the female counterpart to the 10tleman.

That is sooo it for me, friends. Let's meet back here next Friday and see what happens, ok? In the meantime, Monday is our friends Lisa and Paul's six and a half year anniversary and also Day of the Race in Mexico. (Why's it always got to be about race?) Tuesday is my friend and former prom date Alissa's birthday, and Thursday is our friends Dave and Twilight's 4th anniversary. Happy everything to all of them. Peace out, homeskillets, and shaloha. I hope T rest of today, T weekend, and T next week are full of T things you like to do.