The Next Level

I’m afraid you’ll need to file this one in the “Grumpy Old Man” folder; sub-folder, “These Kids Today!”  Apologies for that up front.

As you all know, my incredulity has long been rising in direct proportion to the hemlines of the skirts (and inversely proportional to the tops of the trousers) I see the young people wearing around town these days.  There’s not a lot to say about that; we looked like idiots when we were young, now it’s their turn.  Fair play, and all, except:

Sometimes I see people adopting these fashions who are old enough to know better.  A willow-thin seventeen year old can get away with wearing a pair of knee-high leather boots and a skirt that leaves little to the imagination.  And her companion is welcome to his droopy jeans showing off his boxers.  These are unforgiving fashions and should not be attempted by anyone over the age of twenty-five.  If you insist on dressing like this and you are over the age of thirty, the police should be allowed to take you into custody.  You know who you are.

But beyond that, I was finally coming to terms with the reality that young fashion is so far out of my particular loop as to make it irrelevant.  And at least the girls generally wear a dark, semi-transparent garment that my wife refers to as “leggings” and I call panty-hose without the feet.  At any rate, as long as they are wearing them, the length of their skirt really doesn’t matter.  Too much.

Lately, however, I am afraid that the next logic step is being tested: wearing no skirt whatsoever.  When I first encountered this fashion, I had hopes that it was a fluke.  We live in a busy world, and it is entirely possible the young lady in question simply forgot to put her skirt on before she left the house—Lord knows, I’m capable of doing that—but I just returned from town and, as much as I would love to believe otherwise, there simply cannot be that many absent-minded young women wandering around the High Street.

This disturbs me, not simply because it turns me into a voyeur (they’re happy to dress like that, but just try snapping photos of them and posting them to your soft-porn gallery on the Internet and suddenly people start looking at you like you’re the pervert), but because it is so unfair.  If I decided I wanted to walk around town in my underwear, I would be arrested (or at least escorted back to the Home), so why should they be allowed to disregard the rules of a polite society.  In that direction lies anarchy.

Okay, I'll get off of my soap box now.  I suppose, in the long run, it is neither surprising nor a big deal, and I’m sure, sooner or later, I’ll get used to seeing waifs wearing underwear while I'm out shopping.  But it does make me wonder what the next step is going to be.

And if you are 38 year old woman who is thinking that this might be the fashion for you, I beg you, think again.

This a photo I took for my collect…I mean, to show you

what I have to put up with.  The offending women, for

legal reasons (this is a family blog) have been digitally rendered more modest.