Today is Sunday, January 19.  There are only 127 days to Memorial Day, so get out there and start buying your shorts and Hawaiian shirts.  Today we recognize the birthdays of James Watt, Edgar Allen Poe and Libera Carlier.  On this day in 973 Pope Benedictus VI was elected, in 1853 Verdi’s opera “Il Trovatore” premiered in Rome and in 1988 “48 Hours” premiered on CBS-TV.  It is Robert E Lee Day in the southern US, Confederate Heroes’ Day in Texas and tomorrow is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the US.

Some of you may remember that last week I mentioned going to the mall.  I said that I saw some interesting outfits on people and that I would discuss them some other time.  This is that other time.  As I mentioned, I had the opportunity to sit and watch people walk by.  I really appreciate the sacrifice the lovely Elaine makes when we go to the mall.  She always goes to stores that I have no desire to visit so that I have the chance to people watch.

I am always amazed at the way people dress to go out in public.  There is no way that some of them ever looked in a mirror and thought, “Hey, that looks good.”  If they did then they have deeper issues to deal with than their appearance.  For example, one of the women I saw was dressed in pajama pants that had polar bears on them.  In addition she was wearing fleece lined crocs.  Based on her overall look, it appears that she got up, got out of bed, thought, “Oh, I wanted to go to the mall today,” put on a coat, got in the car and went shopping.  She wore no makeup (not a crime in itself, but it would have helped this particular individual a little) and her hair looked like it had not seen a brush since Wednesday.  Either she had amazingly high self-esteem and didn’t care or very low and she figured why bother.

I saw one couple that was a perfect example of disparity.  The woman was well dressed in a nice pair of slacks, heels and a nice black wool coat open to show what appeared to me to be a silk blouse.  Her hair was done and she was made up well.  Her companion (husband, boyfriend, pet) was wearing a jacket that looked like he had just climbed out of a dumpster.  The jacket was a mess, he wore stained sweat pants and dirty sneakers.  Based on his outer appearance, I was glad he chose not to leave his jacket open.  Maybe he had been selected for a new reality show called “Slob Remakes” and she was taking him shopping for some decent clothes.  Maybe.

Then, of course, there were the women who strode confidently through the place, wanting us to believe they had just come from the gym.  These women wore the short jackets, the tight, mid-calf pants and sneakers.  Of course if you looked at them you realized that they had not been near a gym.  The makeup and hair were too neat to have been subjected to the rigors of a workout.  Did they dress like this so that you would know that they went to a gym regularly or did they really think we would believe they had just come from one?  A couple of the women I saw dressed like that had obviously not been to a gym recently and one looked like she couldn’t even spell gym.

Of course, the guys were not much better.  Let me first say that if you are older than 25, turn your cap around and wear it the right way.  After a certain age you just look silly.  I am not sure I get wearing caps backwards anyway.  Are young people aware that the purpose of the brim is to help shade your eyes?  But I digress …

I have never understood why men want to walk around with their pants falling down all the time.  I find it annoying to have the waist of my pants droop.  I saw one young man walking along with the pants hanging half way down his butt.  The legs of the pants were all bunched up around his feet and he kept tripping on them.  Every few feet, he had to pull the legs up and then adjust the waist so that he could walk.  I watched him for a bit to see if he would fall or get the message and fix his pants.  Personally, I was hoping for a fall.  That would have at least been entertaining.  Neither happened.

I saw a number of males walking around with clothing advertising sports teams, stores, products, etc.  I have always thought this was a little crazy.  Now remember this is just my opinion, but I do not understand why I should spend my money to buy clothing that advertises somebody or something else.  These companies pay huge sums of money to have ads in magazines, on billboards and on the internet.  Why do I have to pay them for the opportunity to advertise them?  They should be paying me for being a walking billboard for them.

One other thing that I found curious was the guys who were walking around, bundled up in hooded, fleece-lined sweatshirts and gloves, but were wearing shorts.  Maybe we should start a foundation for these guys.  We could call it Men Without Pants and we could raise funds to buy these poor, unfortunate people pants that they could wear so they wouldn’t have to walk around in shorts, in the cold.  We could create an MWP line of clothing.  There could be sweatpants with MWP going down the leg.  We could make cute little collection buckets that looked like jeans for people to put donations in.

Or, we could just slap them on the back of the head, Gibbs-style, and say, “Put on some pants you idiot.  It’s cold outside!”

This week our fact tells us that a $230,000 research project proposed by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to study the various ways children fall off bicycles was called, “Evaluation and Parameterization of Stability and Safety Performance Characteristics of Two and Three Wheeled Vehicular Toys for Riding.”  I guess they would not have gotten as much funding if they called it, “Various Ways Children Fall Off Bicycles.”  Why can’t Johnny read?  We aren’t sure, but we can tell you how he falls off his bike.