Longing for Authenticity, Even If Its Fake

"Jeans with paint on them?"

"Yes, they're all the rage."

"But they have paint on them!"

"Yes!"

Just as I was ready to concede that the American experiment is spent and all will soon be lost, she told me about another jeans trend: dirt washed jeans. That's right, the jean manufacturer washes them in dirt. They have pebbles and clumps of clay in the pockets. And Americans, many of them educated and from good homes, willingly exchange their hard-earned dough for them.

The dirt washed jeans are almost as popular as the grease-smeared jeans, she continued (and I'm not making this up). The jean manufacturers actually smear grease all over the jeans, so that people who buy them can be as fashionable as the guy in the pit down at the Jiffy Lube.

I asked the jean shop owner to help me understand why people are buying such products. She said that the manufacturers are always trying to be hip. When something hits - when the trendy crowd just has to have it - the manufacturer can charge huge markups.

Well, I understand that, I told her. But WHY? WHY are people dumb enough to buy these things? Why are Americans spending so much money for items that sensible Americans used to donate to Goodwill or toss in the garbage?

She had no answer. Let me take a stab at it.

As we work exhausting hours in gray cubicles doing bland service work - as we move into cookie-cutter houses in the thick of suburban sprawl - and as fewer of us know any sense of craftsmanship or what it is like to sweat or work with our hands, we long for ANYTHING authentic, even if it is fake.

But what do I know. At 43, I have effectively become my father. Puzzled as I am by the latest trends, my thoughts have shifted to more practical matters.

Such as finding a couple of suckers willing to give me $200 bucks for my dirty, greasy, paint-stained jeans.

Copyright 2020 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of "Misadventures of a 1970's Childhood," a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact Sales@cagle.com or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at Tom@TomPurcell.com.