Thursday March 28th, 2024 10:56AM

Look in the mirror before you leave the house

My grandmother used to always laugh when we went to a restaurant that had one of those signs on the door that said, “No shirt, no shoes, no service.”

“One of these days,” she always threatened, “I’m going to come in here without my pants.”

To my knowledge, she never did it. But my grandmother was quite a character, so I wouldn’t swear to it in a court of law.

To her, the message of that sign was that if you had on your shirt and your shoes, you could come in sans slacks and they’d still serve you a bacon double cheeseburger.

Of course, that’s not really what the business intended with the sign. They were just trying to establish a little decorum and ensure that people that visit their restaurant are dressed appropriately, which is not such a bad idea, if you think about it.

All through my childhood, my mother was a stickler for making sure we wore the right clothes for the right occasion, and that's something I'm still very much aware of every time I get dressed.

For instance, my mother never would have allowed me to go to church in blue jeans and a Georgia Bulldogs T-shirt. On the other hand, she didn't think I needed to wear a tie to go to the ballgame.

In other words, she believes you should dress appropriately for the situation. She believes that if you're staying home for the day, it's perfectly OK to stay in your pajamas if that's what you want to do.

But if you're going to town, you should get dressed. Not necessarily "dressed up," but at least put on some clean clothes, and maybe comb your hair.

Sadly, we’ve become a nation of slobs. We don’t care what we wear or how we look. If we are comfortable, it doesn’t matter to us whether we are dressed appropriately or not. As a result, we have a growing epidemic of people going out in public looking like they just rolled out of bed.

I bring this up not to criticize my mother, but rather to praise her. She's surely seen her fair share of people who were dressed inappropriately – including, probably, her children – but she never went to the extremes of one woman in Ohio.

Perhaps you heard about this story. A woman outside of Cleveland was having her family over for Easter dinner. One family member, a college-aged niece, came to dinner dressed in denim shorts and a T-shirt.

The woman thought her niece was dressed inappropriately for Easter, so she went into another room, got her gun and shot her niece dead.

For the record, my mother has never shot anyone. She's called a few inappropriately dressed folks "tacky," but she's never shot them.

I'm afraid I've inherited this belief from my mother and grandmother. People should have a little pride in what they wear, and, at the very least, they should look at themselves in the mirror before they leave the house.

People don't have to look like they stepped off the cover of "Cosmo" or "GQ." I certainly don't. But I still feel the need to be "dressed" whenever I leave the house. Exactly how I'm dressed depends on where I'm going.

Of course, I also believe in personal freedom, so it’s really none of my business if you show up looking like you just woke up. So dress however you like. I promise I won't shoot you.

But I might call you "tacky."

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