The other day I stopped into our local Fred’s store to pick up a few things. While waiting in the checkout line, I noticed the young guy in line ahead of me. Something about him didn’t look just right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. After a few minutes, I realized it was the clothing.
This poor young man was attempting to pull off the “sagging” look. For those of you that don’t know what I am talking about, sagging is the art of wearing your pants low and showing the world your underoos. I do believe that the more successful you are as a “sagger”, the lower your pants are. In fact, I think if your waistband meets the bottom of your boxers you clearly excel in sagging. I don’t want to come across as intolerant of teens expressing themselves through hair and clothing. Goodness knows I don’t want to stifle their creativity and force them to figure out a more beneficial way of expressing themselves.
Ya’ll, I’m conservative, so when my then Jr. High aged son announced he wanted to dye his bangs RED, I swooned! What in the world was he thinking? Had he not met me? Shockingly, it was my father (who, by the way, thought I should wear bobby socks until high school) that finally convinced me to pick my battles and give on this issue. His logic was is it will grow out and/or can be cut off. Again, where was this man when I was growing up? So Wonder Hubby and I relented and BDJ ended up with some lovely ORANGE bangs (hahaha, talk about Karma!). Of course he acted like they were great, but we knew they were a boo boo. But he just couldn’t admit that, right?
Then last year, as BDJ was preparing for his senior year of college and his final football season, he announced that he was going to get a Mohawk and dye it each week the opposing team’s colors. Here we go again. Of course, now he is a grown man. What am I gonna do? So he headed off to the hairdressers and returned with a flaming red Mohawk. Two days later, one of his best friends was to be married and we attended together. I was so embarrassed! I am not the kind of mom that has kids that dress crazy and have colored Mohawks! I spent the whole wedding and reception explaining this was just a gimmick (he said it was for building team morale) for football season and secretly praying that he really meant it was only for football.
I was glad the season opener was an away game. I wasn’t surprised that the team loved it, but I was completely shocked how many parents loved it. You should have seen my face and gapping mouth when The Memphis Commercial Appeal printed an article about BDJ and how he had gone green (that week’s opponent’s team color was green) and then the university President came to chat him up after the game and said he loved the article and the hair! What, am I a dinosaur or what? Finally I relaxed decided not to be such a prude and began to look forward to seeing the new color each Saturday. Although, I must say that the rainbow Mohawk was a fashion don’t! Now I’m not trying to be a snob, but BDJ pulled off this look well. When he traveled with the team, he dressed in coat and tie and looked neat and clean, even when sporting a Smurf blue hairdo.
So, having said all that, here is my point. I am not against expressing yourself with whatever trend you choose, but please, if you are going to do it, do it well. As I stood in line at Fred’s with the sad example of sagging in front of me, I realized what looked off with him. Bless his heart, he was wearing nasty classic jeans, not the loose fits needed for sagging. But the most pitiful part was his boxers. He wasn’t sporting the cool “Tommy” undies, or even clean undies. He was wearing the most wrung out, sad looking, dirty, knit boxers I had ever seen. I felt pretty bad for the guy. So to all you “Sagger” want-to-b’s…please visit a metropolitan area and take a good look at some examples of successful sagging. You may find that this look just isn’t in your budget and doesn’t fit the rural country boy genre you live in!
