When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris Read Free Book Online Page A

beard smudged on the cheeks, pants with holes in them, a hat, an oversized shirt, and a sport coat stained with food and cigarette ash. Take away the hat, and it’s exactly how I’ve dressed since 1978. Throughout the eighties, the look had a certain wayfarer appeal, but now, accented by amber teeth and nicotine-stained fingers, the word I most often hear is “gnarly.” If Hugh is asked directions to the nearest Citibank, I am asked directions to the nearest plasma bank.
    This is not to say that I have no standards. The year I turned forty, I threw out all my denim, so instead of crummy jeans I walk around in crummy slacks. I don’t own a pair of sunglasses, or anything with writing on it, and I wear shorts only in Normandy, which is basically West Virginia without the possums. It’s not that I haven’t bought nice clothes — it’s just that I’m afraid to put them on, certain they’ll get burned or stained.
    The only expensive thing I actually wear is a navy blue cashmere sweater. It cost four hundred dollars and looks like it was wrestled from the mouth of a tiger. “What a shame,” the dry cleaner said the first time I brought it in. The sweater had been folded into a loaf-sized bundle, and she stroked it, the way you might a freshly dead rabbit. “It’s so soft,” she whispered.
    I didn’t dare tell her that the damage was intentional. The lengthy run across the left shoulder, the dozens of holes in the arms and torso; each was specifically placed by the design team. Ordinarily I avoid things that have been distressed, but this sweater had been taken a step further and ruined. Having been destroyed, it is now indestructible, meaning I can wear it without worry. For half this price, I could have bought an intact sweater, thrown it to a tiger, and wrenched it back myself, but after a certain age, who has that kind of time?
    My second most expensive purchase was a pair of shoes that look like they belong to a clown. They have what my sister Amy calls “a negative heel,” meaning, I think, that I’m actually taller with just my socks on. While not the ideal choice for someone my size, they’re the only shoes I have that don’t leave me hobbling. My feet are completely flat, but for most of my life they were still shaped like feet. Now, thanks to bunions, they’re shaped more like states, wide boring ones that nobody wants to drive through.
    My only regret is that I didn’t buy more clown shoes — a dozen pairs, two dozen, enough to last me for the rest of my life. The thought of the same footwear day after day might bother some people, but if I have one fashion rule, it’s this: never change. That said, things change. I like to think I’m beyond the reach of trends, but my recent infatuation with the man-purse suggests otherwise. It seems I’m still susceptible to embarrassing, rashlike phases, and though I try my best to beat them down, I don’t always succeed. In hopes of avoiding future humiliation, I’ve arranged some of my more glaring mistakes into short lessons I try to review whenever buying anything new. They are as follows:
    Guys Look Like Asses in Euro-style Glasses
    High school taught me a valuable lesson about glasses: don’t wear them. Contacts have always seemed like too much work, so instead I just squint, figuring that if something is more than six feet away I’ll just deal with it when I get there. It might have been different in the eighteenth century when people wore nearly identical wire rims, but today’s wide selection means that in choosing a pair of frames you’re forced to declare yourself a certain type of person, or, in my case, a certain type of insect.
    In 1976 my glasses were so big I could clean the lenses with a squeegee. Not only were they huge, they were also green with Playboy emblems embossed on the stems. Today these frames sound ridiculous, but back then they were actually quite stylish. Time is cruel to everything but seems to have singled out eyeglasses