Blue and White

So, today at work I spent a few hours just stickering books with some of my employees. The young lady working across the table from me started talking to me about movies and stuff and somwhere in the middle of the conversation she got a confused look on her face and looked at me for a long moment then wanted to know how old i was. When I said 23 she got a good laugh out of that. She didn't realize that I was only a year older than her. She was expecting me to say somewhere between 28 and 30. Wow... i dont' even know what to say. I told her she probably thought that because of the beard. She didn't agree. She said it was my manorisms. She pictured me going home and reading books and the newspaper at night and on the weekends. She had trouble thinking that i was the same age as all the people she goes and parties with all the time. It was kind of funny, but obviously, i got sort of introspective about it. We have two totally different lives. She is a 22 year old african american single mother of 2 who lives in a run down appartment complex where her mom lives 2 doors down and her two best friends (who are also single mothers) live a few doors down the other direction. She didn't finish highschool. She doesn't have a steady job. Her kids are nothing but a complaint and the weekends are her chance to get away and go pretend that she can act her age. She thinks I should take care of her kids for a week sometime because then i would be motivated to do more crazy stuff; like somehow I'm short-changing my good fortune to have not procreated yet. it was a disheartening conversation.

Phil's boss pulled him into his office last week and in so many words told him he needed to wear different clothes to work. 'Step in up just a notch' i do believe was the direct quote. Phil was mystified by it all and so was i. I see phil every morning before he goes to work and it's always a shirt and tie with either dress slacks or khaki pants along with dress shoes. Some days he even wears a suit. So, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the dude was referring to. Phil didn't either and he even went back into the guy's office to ask him to be more specific, but the guy was worried about hurting his feelings and wouldn't give him any better idea. He told phil that he'd set up an account for him at a local clothing store (a pretty high-rollin one if i do say so myself) and gone and picked out a few things that he wanted phil to get sized for. He said Phil would figure it out when he got there. He explained that he was a blue and white guy. That he doesn't really get very adventurous with the kind of clothes he wears, but just stickes with blue and white. that's what works. Ok... whatever... So, phil goes to this place yesterday. sure enough the boss had picked out a pair of grey dress slacks, a pair of black dress slacks, a blue shirt, a white shirt, and 2 yellow ties. they were all pretty basic and plain and all basically things that phil has in his wardrobe currently and has worn to work periodically. However, the guy just bought him a few more and phil is still left searching for what exactly in his closet doesn't belong at work... HILLARIOUS! Blue and White. He thinks Phil is going to turn out to be a little 'him'. I love it.