Day: June 25, 2019

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An Okay Idea, But Lousy Execution

Magnetic Bow Tie o’ the Day’s graphics are a bigly FAIL. The lobster design was a good idea, but the actual design etched into the wood doesn’t look lobster-y to me. The little critters look more tentacle-y than claw-y. They even look spider-like. Thus, I’m wearing my “LOBSTER” t-shirt in hopes of clarifying Bow Tie’s etchings.

Bow ties like this one, which attach to clothing with magnets, are perfect for wearing with collarless shirts. They are not, however, abundant. I’ve never found one in a physical store. The ones I own, I found online. And I’ve found only a few. When I see one, I buy it. I ordered this one last week, and it came in a bundle of three, different-graphic bow ties. The total for the bundle was an astounding $4.19 on Amazon Prime. No charge for shipping.

I tell you about the price because I want you to know this bow tie’s design FAIL is not crippling to me in any way. It doesn’t discourage me in my neckwear endeavors. I haven’t gone broke by mindlessly building my collection with cheap neckwear FAILS, although I have inadvertently acquired some less-than-dazzling pieces over the years. I am thrifty and picky in my selections when it is at all possible. No matter its condition or temperament, every piece of neckwear has a speshul place in the various neighborhoods in The Kingdom of The Tie Room.

Speaking o’ The Tie Room… I’m currently reorganizing and rearranging my collection, and so I will be posting pictures of where my neckwear resides– one or two photos at a time. To show a bunch of photos of the entire room, all at once, would be too overwhelming for any human being who is not I. Trust me.

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It’s In The Photograph

Little ol’ Mom, and little ol’ me. We were tuckered out, and I just figured out why. I am wearing the neckwear we kids wore when we had a sore throat or were congested. As I was filing this pic this morning, it leapt out at me: I was wearing Vick’s Rag o’ the Day. Neckwear! I don’t know what you called it in your house, but in our house it was The Vick’s Rag. It was a clean, white dishtowel, rolled up, slicked with a glob of Vick’s VapoRub against your neck, and fastened around your neck with a bigly safety pin. It most likely had absolutely no medicinal value, but it always helped me feel a tad better when Mom put one on me.

The Vick’s Rag was also a kind of neck tiara or full-on crown. It came with privileges. You had dibs on just about everything. The living room sofa was yours if you were wearing The Vick’s Rag. Mom would anoint the couch with The Tuckin’ in o’ The Sheet down its length, for you to rest on. You could ask for special eats if you wanted to– and that was on top of Mom’s regular family fixin’s. Your cup held endless refills of warm Jell-O water. And.. you could do all of your sick eating and drinking on the couch. You were not required to move your bones one iota, as long as your wore The Vick’s Rag.

The highest prize The Vick’s Rag entitled you to? Television channel selection was all yours. Now, for the benefit of you youngsters, let me assure you: Being the boss of TV channels back in the olden days when I grew up was a bigly deal, like you cannot fathom. We, like most people, had only one television in the house. One. That was it. You were choosing for the whole family what you’d all be watching.

But receiving the television privilege was a somewhat complicated prize, because in those same olden days when I grew up, TV remotes were not a common entity. This meant either you had to get your speshul butt off the couch to change the channel, or you could ask someone else to change it for you.

Each of those two options carried with it a hidden trap. You had to be careful. If you got up to change the channel too often, Mom or Dad would say, “Oh, you seem to be getting around ok. You must be getting better.” That was code for, “You’ll probably be well enough to go to school tomorrow.” Doh!

If you asked someone else to turn the channel for you, you had to be extremely polite. You could not be bossy or constantly asking for the channel to be changed, or Mom or Dad would say something about how they don’t work all day just to come home, and get up and down, to change TV channels. You knew that option would rarely end well, and Dad would be allowed to take over “your” couch before the evening was over– even if everybody knew you wore The Vick’s Rag in the family.