Fall is here. And maybe it couldn't have arrived at a better time. Back at the beginning of the summer,
I wrote a post about a man who walked into the Mars Bar wearing a green shirt with a pink sweater wrapped around his shoulders.
There was some mock horror on our behalf. But it seemed to represent a trend: The entire East Village was fair game to any type of interloper. In any kind of shirt. All summer long.
In the days that followed, I started seeing more and more men in the neighborhood wearing pink shirts.
So I kept tabs.
In one week, I spotted 34 men wearing pink shirts out and about -- drinking at bars, waiting in line for pizza, walking across the Bowery.
Now I don't care what
anyone wears. You like pink? That's fine.
What I do mind is the sense of entitlement that seems to come with the person wearing the pink shirt. At least from the people I saw wearing them. Like, that rather serene late afternoon at Manitoba's. Suddenly, the door pops open and eight men walk in, like some kind of SWAT team on a recovery mission.
The leader, wearing a pink Oxford cloth, shirt snaps his fingers and shouts to his friend, seriously, "Juke, bro." (Luckily, given the jukebox at Manitoba's, not a lot of damage can be done.) In the next 30 minutes or so during the entertaining reign of terror, the men comfortably arranged themselves around the bar, even doing a round of Irish car bombs. They didn't tip much for all the trouble.
Another night, several people were waiting in a checkout lane at Key. The woman at the cashier was having problems with her food stamps. Something was wrong with her EBT card. She looked embarrassed. And it didn't help that the fellow in line directly behind made it
very clear that he was
annoyed with having to wait for
this, this peasant. He sighed loudly. With a theatrical swoop of his arm, he'd check his watch. And he was wearing a pink dress shirt with his jeans.
So why so many pink shirts? Perhaps the shirts are just a mere prop for the ladies. In this thoughtful listicle in the
Post from the summer, we're told how to score a hookup in the Hamptons.
Advice No. 3. Wear a bright pink shirt. "It's like an aphrodisiac for women in the Hamptons."
One night, I ran into a friend out and about.
She was meeting a friend -- who turned up in a pink polo shirt. He was a dick. I asked him why he wore pink. He said that it showed off his tan better than a white shirt -- and that it didn't show the dirt as much.
Anyway, soon enough, everywhere I turned, pink shirts.
Pink.
Pink.
Pink.
Pink.
Pink.
Pink.
Pink.
I don't have any answers. But is there someone to blame for this trend?
Anyone?
