There comes a point in every boy's life where he wonders if he has what it takes to be a man.
According to my vague recollection of the movie 300, at the age of seven, Spartan boys were taken from their families and forced to enter the State mandated education and indoctrination program. Boys were weirdly made to get naked, go into the wilderness alone (allegedly… seems like being naked wouldn’t matter if you were alone), and fight off a CGI wolf.
According to my vague recollection of the History Channel, some African tribes practice ritual scarification.
And according to some very real experiences in a locker room, Jewish boys get circumcised.
For Nebraskans from the city of Grand Island, it’s the day our mom buys us our first suit.
●●●
Suit, as I lovingly call her, accompanied me through weddings, senior pictures, scholarship banquets, and all other suit related activities from the ages of 16 to 22. My first full-time job was the type where the sport coat was more important than the work itself. The first 6 months of new hire training, Suit and I put in some real heavy, corporate lifting.
In new hire training I hit it off a sweet country girl from West Virginia named Candace, who worked in Pittsburgh. Candace was delightful, and I'm not the kind of guy that uses the word delightful. She had a bubbly charm and was exceptionally bright. In a room full of narcissistic 20 somethings training to be slimy salespeople, she was a breath of fresh air.
Fast forward from training to real life. Suit and I were headed to Pittsburgh for my first big meeting.
Suit and I’s first big meeting was actually someone else’s meeting where they’d entertain somewhere between 10 and 200 random, important Vice Presidents where my big job was collecting business cards and sending thank you notes when we got home. I was lucky to be there, and a bit nervous.
Thankfully, Candace was local, and I could spend the day with her before Suit and I had to go full corporate. She picked me up at the airport and was excited to cram the Pittsburgh’s tour de force into one afternoon.
Candace pulled up in her brand-new SUV – her version of Suit – which she proudly showed off with new car smell, plush floormats, and the same sense of pride one finds after allegedly fighting off a CGI wolf naked.
First stop: Primanti Brothers, the Steel City’s premier offering. Candace explained this is the perfect combination of hoagie roll, hot sliced meats, and French fries. It immediately sank to the bottom of my gut. This was a pretty good sandwich.
The next few stops were a couple of bars to sample the requisite number of pints of Yuengling lager. As the cool suds mixed with the finely shaved beef in my stomach, Candace and I caught up on life.
Finally, we made plans to meet up in the morning for breakfast.
●●●
3:00 AM
I'm wide awake, curled into a ball with splitting stomach pain. My mom's advice to me as a kid with stomach issues rings in my subconscious.
"Chris, have you tried to poop?"
Good idea.
No luck.
It's getting worse.
I turn on my hotel shower, strip off my clothes, and transfer my fetal positioned body from the floor next to the toilet to the bottom of the cold porcelain tub. Streams of hot water provide temporary relief as time stood still.
Eventually the pain stabilizes enough to dry myself off and make another attempt at sleep. Only a few hours remained until Candace will be pulling up in her new SUV for breakfast.
I can't recall, but I'm sure I prayed.
●●●
7AM
My alarm goes off and I put on Suit. No need for a shower, I took care of that between the hours of 3:30 and 5:00AM.
Candace is waiting for me in the lobby and I am in agony.
The contents of my stomach are doing a clown car routine- at risk of everything spilling out at a moment's notice. I try to be polite. I try to be interested I try to be excited. I can't be sick, not today. Today’s Suit and I’s first big meeting.
I barely bring myself to ask for a single side order of pancakes. I laboriously ate half of one before I throw in the towel.
Candace is suspicious but lets me keep my pride. I pick up the bill on my company credit card and we make our way in her new SUV back toward the hotel.
“Oh, let me show you this cool part of town on the way, do you have time?"
Dear God no. Anything but that.
But "sure, let's do it" is what comes out of my mouth.
Wrong answer.
●●●
8:30AM
The scenic route wasn’t part of the plan.
As she pulled up to my hotel, time expired.
I barfed.
Everywhere.
Panic ensued, Candace yelled "oh shit!!!" and immediately sped back up, pulling away from the hotel and back onto the adjacent freeway. She had no destination in mind, just knew she couldn't leave me alone in this state.
The Primanti Brothers and Yuengling covered every square inch of me, Suit, and the interior of her brand-new SUV.
"Why didn't you open the window? why didn't you ask her to pull over? why didn’t you do, well anything that would have not resulted in you puking all over her new car and yourself in the process?"
All fair and valid questions. I don't have a good answer to any of them other than saying it’s hard to describe the state I was before Vesuvius. All my mental and physical faculties were focused on one goal: don’t puke.
But if you've ever puked, you can attest that it does wonders. Despite not knowing where to put my hands and the excruciating scent of stomach bile erasing any of the new car smell, my mind had been cleared along with my stomach.
All along, I thought Suit was my rite of passage, but this was it. Puking in this brand-new car, all over Suit, all over myself, and still making this meeting – this was my moment. This was my CGI wolf. Now I just had to take off some of these clothes.
"What do you want me to do?!?!” Candace screamed while speeding down the highway wishing she had never agreed to be my friend.
"Pull over at this gas station and park next to that dumpster."
In the most literal sense, I peel off Suit, and use my now soiled button-up shirt to shovel up as much vomit as its polyester blend can move. It didn’t work well.
The shirt went in the dumpster, but I wasn't ready to give up on Suit. Not yet. I shook and folded Suit to seal up as much of the chunks and splotches as I could and climbed back into the passenger seat in just my white undershirt and my soiled slacks.
"Where can I buy a new suit?"
"I don't know. Brooks Brothers?"
Fuck, sounds expensive.
"Ok. Let's go."
I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for how much money I would have to shell out and how exactly I would walk into a formalwear store in a sweaty white undershirt and filthy slacks smelling like bodily fluids-when I catch a break.
"Wait. Is that a Kohl's? Pull over!!”
Every day before that and every day since then I have found Kohl's to be the worst place on Earth, but on this day, I have never been so thankful.
Candace parks. The clock is ticking. My meeting starts in less than an hour and I need an entire costume change. I sprint in and grab some sports coat that says "Medium" and a non—corresponding pair of black slacks that feels like it's made from athletic shorts material. I don't browse. I don't try them on. I purchase my new wardrobe from an old lady that is completely unphased by the state of my attire-- this is Kohl’s after all -- and ask her to direct me to the changing rooms.
Suddenly, I'm a new man.
My sickness has been cured and my image restored. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Candace’s SUV. And I didn't have any more time to help make that right. I google "how much does it cost to detail a car” tell her to wait while I run in really quick. I withdraw $200 from an ATM, shove the cash through the window, and yell:
"I'm so sorry, I have no idea where to get your car detailed, but according to the internet this should cover it. I got to go... It was good to see you!"
●●●
The meeting went surprisingly well. I went home with a stack of business cards, a long list of to-do items, and a Kohl’s sack with the remnants of my childhood innocence, and thought, “Look at me now, CGI wolf. I overcame.”
But also, what am I supposed to do with this puke covered Suit?
I had too much sentiment to throw it away, couldn’t possibly explain Suit’s state to a dry cleaner when they ask, “what kind of stains are these?”.
What the hell, let's just throw it in the wash and see what happens.
Magic happened.
Good as new.
●●●
When I got married, part of the perks of making my Groomsmen rent from Men's Wearhouse was I received enough in-store credit to get fitted for a new suit. I picked out a stylish navy-blue pinstripe made by Tommy Hilfiger. It took a few weeks for them to get it fitted to my measurements, but when it came in, I looked good. Real good.
Then I lost a bunch of weight and now it doesn't fit.
But you know what does?
My trusty old friend: Suit.
As Told By C.S. Beaty: Dirty Laundry