A Tale of a Tie

I went to the opera a week and a half ago. Saw Opera Colorado's colorful production of Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers."

I wore a relatively boring navy blue pin-striped suit. I originally bought the suit to attend a funeral.

As I was dressing for the opera, some imp or devil crept into my mind. When I went to pick a tie for the evening, a wicked gleam sparked in my eye.

I didn't want to wear just some boring old tie, some sameness of a silk. I suddenly got the urge to wear something catchy and unwearable. Something you would NOT wear to the opera.

I thought of Jon and some of the ties I had seen him wear. Maybe to the opera, maybe just to other events? No, definitely to the opera. He had worn some pretty wild ties. I think.

So suddenly the event became for me more than a mere opera. It was an Ugly Tie Contest.

And, looking through my tie rack I found it: the winner!

No. Now I could not wear THIS tie, could I? To the opera?

What I had found was a joke tie. I had picked it up in a thrift store in the 1980s sometime. It was 4 inches wide at its widest point, and had a busy repeating geometrical pattern of shit brown, French's mustard, and lime Jell-o green. Uhhh-glee!!

This was a tie you just did not wear. It was a gag. Last time I wore it--let's face it, the ONLY time I ever wore it--was as part of a Halloween costume. I was going as one of the undead, a zombie straight out of the ground. I wore really arresting ghastly grey-skin makeup, the worst old hobo torn-up clothes I could find. . .and this tie. I even went outside and smeared dirt on my outfit!

So here was the tie I decided to wear to the opera. It looked like a tight, busy, geometric vomit job.

I put the tie on. I repeated to myself my line about this being not just an opera but an "ugly tie contest."

And I hied myself to meet Jon and Donna at dinner before the opera.

They did not notice my tie. I had to point it out to them.

Jon made a half-hearted show of saying the tie was ugly, but his basic attitude was that I was making something out of nothing. Donna didn't think the tie was so bad, really.

It was dark there in Little India restaurant, and I told them that it must be the lighting. You really had to see this tie in some light. This is what I said.

But in the light of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, the distinct lack of buzz about my tie continued. Swells streamed past. No one gave my tie a second glance. Donna still said it really was not that bad. Kind of good, actually.

And that is when it hit me: things change. Fashions change. It hit me like a fist. This tie, which had been nothing but a Halloween joke hanging in my closet for all these years, was now acceptable to wear. In public.

To the opera, for goodness' sake!

I thought of my fashion-conscious friend Jennifer. Thought she would love this story, how the Tie of the Living Dead was now acceptable opera wear.

What a wacky world!

Halloween Visitors: A List

Spent Halloween at my stepmother Amy's place.

For the first time in many years, I got to see some trick-or-treaters. I even got to give out the candy. I had a blood-red glass bowl filled with a mixture of "fun size" Snickers, Nestle's Crunch, Kit Kats, and Hershey's kisses.

I expected the little little kids to be coming around with their parents quite early, around 4:30 or so. But really, the first visitors, a small girl devil with her demon mother, came by just before 6:30.

The kids started out very small, like the amazing elfin Spiderman I opened the door to find next, and got bigger as the evening's modest parade went on. In the middle were the middle-school kids, too cool to wear costumes (unless those "cool" outfits they were wearing were their costumes!) They got taller and edgier toward the end, like the young man who announced himself as "a dead skateboarder," and who, indeed, had a full-sized skateboard right through his body!

Four days before Election Day, many of the older kids heartily approved of my "Obama/Biden" t-shirt.

For what it's worth, here is the modest list of trick-or-treaters at Amy's house in suburban Littleton:

- 1 small devil (1 accompanying parent)

-1 small Spiderman
-1 spider baby (in mom's chest harness)
-(2 parents)

-2 slightly older cute witches

-3 young teens, 1 dog. (too cool for costumes. small fluffy dog carried like a baby under a blanket)

-2 small Transformers
-1 self-confessed "homicidal murderer"
-1 girl genie
-(1 parent)

-1 dead skateboarder
-1 Jason

-1 female duck
-1 vampiress
(arrived after 9:00, after we had given up and closed the front door)

-7 assorted older teens: vampires, "a black man," hockey goalie, etc.