Sweat. Pants.

I've written before about high school and the years after we first moved to the U.S. One thing I neglected to address is the fact that I didn't realize, at first, that it was inappropriate to wear sweat pants out in public.

I've spoken to a few different immigrants about this, including a wholly unscientific survey conducted among my male siblings. We all had a similar tale of a slow dawning realization about this. I'm not sure why it's ok in Rio to wear sweat pants out in public. Maybe it's not, and it's just something we did?

Anyway, this was hardly my only fashion faux pas. I also had this baseball hat - I liked it because it was black. It also had bright orange lettering, in a color favored by surf-type gear from Rio. I liked that too. What I didn't consider was that the lettering said: "YOU CAN'T TOUCH THIS." Maybe it wasn't even "YOU." It might have been "U." I can't say I knew what I was thinking when I got this hat. My grandparents had sent to Disneyworld with a cousin several years prior, and during the trip I bought my first discman, my first cd's, and things like cool American baseball hats.

Now, of course, I'd be fine, because of that guy on 30 Rock. But back then? I thought the hat couldn't possibly be a reference to the song. I assumed it meant something else, and I guess I wore it expecting that one day, the meaning of it would dawn on me. (This is similar to how I came to learn about Pauly Shore. Surely, I thought, I am missing part of the story. This man is not famous for the things I've seen him do on MTV, I would think. There must be more to this story, I would tell myself. In fact, there was less. Much less. But I digress.)

Anyway, so there you have me - on a couple of ill-fated days in the fall of 1992, you could have spotted me in sweat pants, wearing a flannel shirt (de rigeur for emotionally needy teenagers in the early 90s), and a "U CAN'T TOUCH THIS" baseball hat.

I am writing about this, however, for a very specific reason. Namely, that it's now ok to wear sweatpants in public. I know this because Mrs. Abstract Citizen called me just the other night, surrounded by undergrads in Uggs and sweatpants, and I thought: No. This is not fair. Damn you, youth of America. Curse your capricious changes of heart. It just ain't right.