Jacket Very Much Required at My House
So, I was watching some Brady Bunch the other night...I know. Big surprise. My faithful blog readers know all about my love of the Brady Bunch.
So, as I was saying, I was watching the Brady Bunch the other night when I got the idea for this blog entry. A while back, I had a post about how we 30-something adults don't have "company" anymore; we merely hang out. This could be a sister piece to that little essay, because it kind of comes from the same place.
Well, I just so happened to be watching the second-to-final episode of the series, where Bobby demonstrates that he has the ability of a world-class, professional pool player. In that episode, the Brady parents have a handful of couples over for dinner; specifically, 3 guys that Mike works with and their wives.
What struck me as particularly funny is that all of Mike's co-workers show up for dinner in business suits. Now, I may have seen this episode a couple hundred times already, so why have I noticed it now? Well, I actually have noticed it before, but for years I just figured that that's how people in their mid to late 30s (people Mr. Brady's age) dressed for "company." But now that I am practically Mr. Brady's age myself, I see things with new perspectives.
I can't even fathom my friends donning business suits to come over and hang out at my place. Is it because we're low-brow trash? I don't really think so.
How ridiculous is that? If I was going on some social call to a friend's place where I wanted to be better than jeans-and-Tshirt, I might put on something with a collar or a sweater. But a suit?
Really, it's no surprise, though. The Bradys, especially the kids, have been rocking the suit game forever. In the course of the series, the boys have regularly worn 3-piece suits for reasons that were, I'm pretty sure, dreadfully unrealistic to conceive in real life even by the standards of 1970 or 1971. Examples include donning the threads for attending elementary school stage productions, at kid birthday parties, and—my favorite—to impress girls at school. Holy crap. I was in junior high only 10 years after the end of the series, and can you imagine if I went to school in a friekin' three-piece suit in the hopes that I would impress a girl with it? The best I would do is impress upon her that I was some kind of freak who wears suits to school for no reason.
I digress... The winds of change are blowing. It's time to take a cue from the Bunch. From now on, when you gentlemen come to my house to have dinner and hang out, you all better be wearing suits. Or else you can't come in. Well, you can come in, but we will talk poorly about you when you leave.
Optionally, you can take the jacket off as we settle in on the couch and watch Family Guy DVDs.
posted by Steve @ 2:30 PM
2 Comments:
Thinking back to my own family's "company" days, the thing that strikes me as funny is how rigidly structured it always was... regardless of whether we were the 'hosts' or the 'company', it was always the same: arrive at around 10am, the kids would go off and play while the adults sat in the backyard drinking and discussing things of interest (which, having been the kid, I was never privy to, but I can't image it was about things like the moral lessons to be learned from Star Wars...), then we'd all eat dinner at about 3, then we'd all go play a little more while more discussion was had, then desserts and coffee was brought out around 5, the dessert usually being 'company' supplied. A little more play, then the company would depart at around 7 or 8. Invariably.
One thing that cracks me up is when my mom tries to push her coffee perkalator on me whenever I plan on having a gathering; she's so set in her 'company' protocols that I MUST serve coffee after dinner, despite the fact that a) I wouldn't know how to even turn the damn thing on, and b) NO ONE else in my gathering drinks coffee either, hence the humor in calling ourselves 'the Coffee Crew'.
That suits me just fine.
And Paul, I had to laugh about the percolator comment, as my mother-in-law used to do the same thing. In fact, when she and my father-in-law come over for dinner, they bring coffee WITH them, knowing we don't drink coffee and aren't likely to remember to serve it!
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