Overall, America has an overalls problem.

Every day, overalls are talked about in the media. The media would have us believe that people are wearing overalls too much and that overalls are wreaking destruction on our country. We are bombarded with images of people in overalls. The horrible damage overalls cause to our country is obvious to anyone paying attention. It’s time we told the truth about overalls and proposed overalls control legislation in our country.

Overalls ownership has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. Studies show that Americans continue to kill fashion with overalls more frequently than the next 10 civilized countries combined. We would expect overalls in Mexico, or in Guatemala – or even in Switzerland, where overalls are plentiful but very tightly regulated. Sure, Switzerland has similar clothing restrictions, but they also have mandatory fashion training and limit the number and type of overalls per household. Despite the mandatory training, they also have two-thirds of the number of overalls we have in the USA. 

The Swiss also have the sense to never wear overalls in public. That’s really an important point.

For the really civilized countries, overalls are banned from the general population. As a result, overalls are rarely, if ever, seen. The damage caused by overalls decreases. Can you imagine wearing overalls in the British House of Parliament? On the runway in Paris? It’s preposterous to even think of a single reason overalls would exist in these countries, so they have proceeded with strict overalls regulations despite the supposed lack of freedoms it entails.

(Critics of the international overalls violence statistics counter with the claim that in countries like the UK, “overall” violence has increased despite the prohibition of overalls. It’s an absurd claim, and please note the deceptive use of the word “overall” instead of “overalls.” This kind of misleading with statistics is a common tactic, but it does little to further the debate.)

In the United States, overalls are a “throwback,” aren’t they? In the early days of our country, overalls were important, even necessary. We did a lot more pig farming back then. And we had less fashion shows.

This is America, consarnit. Of course we have the right to wear overalls. You have the right to smell like horse manure anywhere you want to. But it offends my nose, and they are horrible to look upon. if your overalls-wearing happens outside of sport-mucking the pig pen, do you still have the right to wear overalls? Do we still want people out there destroying decorum in malls, theaters, and even in schools?

Overalls “truthers” go too far. They suggest overalls are not a problem at all, or that people criminally wearing overalls are “staged” by anti-overall activists. This is a despicable and horrifying strategy, a clear denial of reality – and an additional reason overalls regulations must be imposed and strictly enforced. After all, if we live in a country where a segment of the population is capable of denying the truth at this level, do we deserve to have our right to wear overalls?

Some say it’s the type of overalls, and that we should limit the types of overalls available on the market. The question isn’t really about the type of overalls, is it? Do we care if you are wearing overalls with six pockets or thirty? If you are wearing overalls in public, the damage is already done. When it comes to overalls, ONE PAIR IS TOO MANY.

In today’s America, there is really no good reason for overalls. Sure, we protect our right to wear overalls, and some flawed logicians go so far to say that overalls can protect us from the mud and muck better than other types of clothing. The more paranoid among us say that fascist dictators throughout history have banned overalls, and therefore subdued their populace. Please. If Obama’s America/ some future fascist dictator wants to take your overalls “over your dead body,” then get ready to have a dead body. They will get your overalls, using overwhelming force if necessary, and your puny pair of overalls will not stop them. You’ll be dead  - and wearing overalls. Is that really how you want to go out?

If the job is really mucky and dirty, no amount of overalls is going to protect you from getting filthy. I guess what I’m saying is for those conspiracy theorists that believe that some fantasy police state of nature in the future might exist and come after your overalls, restricting your right to protect yourself from mud and dirt, give it a rest. Your puny overalls are never enough for nature’s greatest drone attack: an entire pen of pig crap.

This is America, and we vigorously protect our personal rights. The problem is that overalls are very difficult to pull off. Most of the stories we hear of in the news, for instance, are about people who lacked any kind of fashion sense, indiscriminately purchased overalls and then wore them everywhere, without regard to decorum, absolutely killing fashion.

As the saying goes: your freedoms end where my sense of fashion begins.

Do overalls matter so much to us? Do we cling to our banjos and our poor dental hygiene, our obesity and our right to marry our cousins so much that we must defend our right to something so inane as overalls? Is there a place for overalls in a civilized society? Do they serve any real purpose outside of an imagined threat of future overall terrorism?

Pro-Overalls activists would have you believe that the solution is more overalls. Yes, it IS counterintuitive, isn’t it? It’s as if their love for overalls is so blind that they insist that they must kill ALL sense of propriety. What’s most odd about this is that they can’t seem to see the perversion of the argument. “Overalls are just an article of clothing,” they say. “Just because someone wears them inappropriately doesn’t make overalls bad.”

People. Is there really a “good” way to wear overalls?

Obviously I'm on one side of the overalls-control issue. But I welcome the opposing viewpoint. Will you be the one to articulate it?

Let’s continue the debate on overalls, by all means. But let’s avoid knee-jerk reactions that equate the wearing of overalls to some hallowed and unassailable human right. Remember, our forefathers wore dickeys and wigs. They had wooden teeth. Do we really want to take fashion advice from men who wore breeches, periwigs, and stockings? Fashion was far different in their time. It’s difficult to even say this, but it’s probably true: every one of our founding fathers would have been laughed off of project runway.

And that, well, that is about as un-American as it gets.

Author’s note. This is not meant to belittle violence or minimize the subject in any way. This is a serious issue. If you are on the other side of the issue, I welcome your reasoned opinion, and in many cases I agree, despite some of my satirical points in this post. The intention is that both sides should be able to find space in this analogy, and perhaps it will also allow us to get past veiled threats and intimidation. After all, no one likes a discussion with a pair of overalls held to their head, or even with the threat of overalls violence.

When I'm not trying to conceive of the entirety of the universe(or some other worthy purpose, like pouring cereal into a bowl or trimming my dog's nails), I'm on Facebook. Which is to say, I'm on Facebook fairly often. 

Okay, let's start by exposing the lie. Us Facebookers are on it a whole heckuva lot more than we'd admit. It's like reading comic books or a dirty cheap novel - you can't really admit liking it, that would be awful. It doesn't pay well. It serves little in the way of "higher good." It's a dalliance, it's a time-waster. We know this. We may not stare at Facebook 8 hours a day, but it's a great rabbit hole, and trying to pass it off as "well, I only check Facebook once a day" or some other bullcrap is just lying to yourself. And me. Stop. (See Own Your Sh*t.) We're on the Facebook, we are Facebookers dangit, and for people like us who have, you know, lives, we sure let it suck from us, don't we? Take heart, though: while some studies have correlated the amount of time spent on Facebook to productivity and grades, a study at Lock Haven University found no correlation between grades and Facebook if users were casual, not intensive users. 

So here's to having a life AND a Facebook account. Simultaneously.

But Facebook, for most of us, is about as useful as a box of crackers in a house fire. Somehow, we've been duped. We're spending time on a "social network" that is barely social and networked with people that frankly, most of us probably wouldn't miss if they fell off the earth. No offense to you dear reader. OF COURSE NOT YOU. I mean my other less important friends. No, NOT YOU EITHER, second person reading this.

What's also comical is the failbook-ness of just about all of us. Few people get Facebook "right." I have friends who appear perfectly sane in the real world, but on Facebook they act like churlish, maniacal bottom-feeders who can barely string two sentences together. Or their sarcasm gets so deep or comments are so cryptic you can't even tell what they are saying. "Yeah, I always thought that about Lance Armstrong," they'll post with an article that covers the story. THOUGHT WHAT? Others, quite interesting people to talk to in the realz world, post on Facebook about their lives in a way that makes you think they must be on the verge of boredom-induced suicide: 

"Ron and I ate spaghetti for dinner with the kids tonight. Chris had garlic bread but Ricky didn't. Then we went upstairs and watched MASH reruns until bedtime. It feels good to be home at work after a long day at the office." Oh my GOD, is that the Xanax talking?

If it's attention you want, however, Facebook can deliver in a way some people just can't access in the world of actual people, where you must "talk."

I went to high school with, oh say "George." George was the kind of awkward kid with coke-bottle glasses and bad breath that could barely speak, spittle flew out jumpin jiminy Ken was a mess. I mean George. Anyway, George couldn't engage people by saying "hello," or "hey, it's great to see you!" No, he didn't really have "normal" stuff in his vocab, though he was uber-geeky and you'd think he could have used his brain to conjure something pseudo-normal-sounding. He couldn't. But he was desperate for attention. So he'd walk up to you and say something I'm sure he thought was engaging, like "I'll bet you like the movie Rikki Tikki Tavi." And you're all "What George?" <Pause> "Okay. I'll bite. What are you talking about?"

And George had you. He'd then go off on some dopey tangent that no one cared about, including George, but he'd wend it into something that garnered your attention for 3 or 4 minutes. It was the best he could do, all the attention he got, and it was sad. If George is on Facebook today, I'm sure he's posting polls, pictures of his rice bowl for lunch, ANYTHING he can find.

(Confession. FB being what it is, I decided to look up George on FB just now. He's there in full force. His third post of today, I kid you not included this sentence: "...the druid summoned a Large Pteranodon, who picked up my Big Blond Viking With a Sword..." So you'll get a bit of a picture about who I'm talking about here, though from this description I might have gone to school with Will Wheaton. Being a nerd is cool today, but man we were picked on 20 years ago. So maybe that's not illustrative enough. In perving his FB profile, I even find myself agreeing with him. This is kinda freaking me out. Anyway, Hi George)

It's about attention. George, you see, almost "fits in" on Facebook, in a weird way. I have another old friend from elementary school who is on FB in this way, like a chronicle of his life, talking to an audience he could never reach from his Asperger's or whatever(that is not a joke, I really think he has a touch of something). But we know what he eats. We know those little pictures he posts everyday from his bike ride, or his lunch, and his snappy shoes. I guess it's cheaper than therapy.

In addition to the "please pay attention to me" attention-seekers, there are those who love Facebook as long as it serves their purposes, which are generally either to a) promote their company or b)multilevel, or c) garner support for their upcoming divorce proceeding("he took the children!" I do not lie, I have seen this post. Dirty laundry anyone?). Sometimes it's just to spread the drama in their lives, or even worse, to relive some horrifying event in front of everyone on a monthly, semi-annual, or annual basis: "44 years ago today my great-grandmother Meemaw died in a carrot-peeling accident, and I have missed her every day since. I am crying today remembering the lilacs you grew and how wonderful you were. Good-bye Meemaw." Hey, we know, you've gone through hell. We get it. We REALLY get it. Because now we're going through your hell with you. Neat. For your next tragedy-rerun friend, I encourage you to click "like." No? Chicken.

Facebook is an attention-whore's paradise. It's a great way of jumping up and down to get a false sense of importance. Isn't it neat that 18 people liked your post? Even my children, indoctrinated by he oh-so-accurate portrayal of the ideal child's life on "The Suite Life," get excited when I post something about them on Facebook. Dummy that I am, of course, I let them know about it, and for hours afterwards, every 15 minutes it's "Dad, how many 'likes' do I have NOW?" None, you little bastard. No one likes you. If I had more guts I would say this, but I actually spend time trying to convince them it doesn't really matter and it's just for fun. (It doesn't really matter... right?)

Isn't there something about being here on the Facebooks(oh, and I'm here, make no mistake. I'm here. Like me! Share me!) that just feels like we're being suckered into playing the Lottery with our time? Isn't it just slightly, a teensy-weensy bit like a ponzi scheme, where we hope to invest a tiny bit of our time and parlay it into some more significant, famous-making event that will add significance to our desperate existences? I'll post on Facebook and everyone will like me!!

Shouldn't we be asking, at some level. what our desire to post these things on Facebook says about US and our desire/ability to engage others in the real world? 

Oh-  Don't be offended by this ramble. By "our" foibles, I totally mean "mine," of course. Because only I feel this way. I'm the only pathetic loser that feels this twinge sometimes. Everyone else is totally noble about it. It's just me.

"Like" and "Share" if you agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We live in a world where we have what we want, but can't express who we are. Wouldn't it be refreshing if we could?

We speak in a language of “wants” in our society. It’s amazing how it screws us up.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you’ll recall, places basic “needs” above “wants.” This means the things we need – food, water, shelter, warmth – have more importance to us than things we want, like a high-speed internet connection or One Direction videos or pictures of Vanilla Ice.  Okay, maybe I’m alone on the last one there.

For most of us in America – most, I say, not all – our basic needs are satisfied. We don’t go to bed hungry. We don’t worry about finding shelter. We don’t have to seek a fresh source of water.

The way we talk about our lives, however, is increasingly out of touch with this needs/wants hierarchy. Young girls go all “FML” when they get an iPhone 4 for Christmas instead of an iPhone 5. Oh noes! Adolescent insolence is nothing new. More shocking is the way we as adults twist our words, making needs out of wants. It’s a very adult thing to do. And equally full of crap.

Want to lose weight? Don’t most of us? But do you really? Or are your “needs” – like your need to sit on the couch and watch Downton Abbey, wake up 30 minutes later, or your love for cheeseburgers - getting in your way?

That sounds stupid, but we all do this. When asked if we can do something, we respond reflexively with the very adult-sounding “I don’t have time,” and then we post how high our Angry Birds score is on Facebook. When facing a decision on something worthwhile – like advancing our education, volunteering for a good cause, attending a seminar, or going to the gym, we cop-out by placing something on the needs scale that isn’t a need – or doesn’t exist at all. I was going to help with that cancer-research thing, but I’m just too busy. My toaster really needs cleaning. It’s true. It’s disgusting.

It used to really bug me that parents would walk past toys in the store, children squawking behind asking for said toys, and their parents would respond with “we can’t afford that.” In some cases this was probably true. For many, though, it’s just another Easter Bunny lie, isn’t it? Why don’t these parents say what they really mean? Perhaps because “I’m not buying you another ten dollar piece of crap that you’ll play with for ten minutes and then whine at me until I break down and buy you another ten dollar piece of crap” is a bit more complicated. Sometimes the truth is more difficult, whether you’re telling it to your children – or to yourself.

“Own your sh*t.” That means take ownership of what comes out of your mouth. Make your words the truth: it’s much more freeing. Lying to yourself and to others, those little white lies about what you “must” do, about the horrible 1st-world restrictions placed on your life that prevent you from being greater, doing better, accomplishing more, is adding nothing but gibberish your life, making it less valuable because it’s more full of poop. It’s perfectly fine to want to read Fifty Shades of Grey again instead of helping with the church bake sale. But don’t blow them off with “I’m too busy” or some lameass excuse about having to recover from a spleen injury and then go lay on the couch. Own your laziness. Just tell them “no.” Why is “no” so hard for us?

One day Jim came over and asked if they could borrow Frank’s axe to chop firewood.

“No,” said Frank. “I’m making soup.”

“Making soup?” said Jim. “What does that have to do with borrowing your axe?”

“Nothing,” replied Frank, “But I don’t want to loan you my axe, so what difference does it make what excuse I give you?”

Own your sh*t. Frank owned his, but recognized that Jim probably needed some lame excuse to back it up. Can we admit to each other, without a bunch of lame excuses, that we just want to do what we want to do, and we don’t want to do what we don’t want to do? Is that so hard?

I’m not talking about “The Secret”, or some magical way to talk your hopes into realities by speaking it into existence. I’m talking about how we all deny ourselves peace by a) prioritizing the worst and b) justifying it with words that, well, suck. We deserve a fancy $4.00 coffee every day because we work so hard, but we apparently don’t deserve a retirement because we spent $4.00 on a cup of coffee every day of our working lives(Financial Advisors call this the cup of coffee analogy).  We protect our faults by covering them with ennobling phrases instead of just saying “no.”

Know someone like this? It’s very humorous to watch people excuse away things as if they get paid according to the number of excuses they generate. One excuse isn’t enough – I will therefore provide you with seven(!) reasons why I cannot do the thing you asked me to do. Some people are comical enough to do this with every request, no matter how simple.

“You want to get coffee on Tuesday?”

“Oh, I would LOVE to, but I can’t. I have my annual review coming up the next day, plus I have to make Susan’s lunch that morning and Becky asked me to a meeting I can’t go to because I’m already totally booked but my diet prohibits coffee, so that won’t work and we have a wedding to go to that coming weekend plus I am just SWAMPED with the McKenzie project.“

No means no folks. Just say “no.” Once will do. No one needs your seven excuses. They don’t even need one, really. It’s always comical to me when someone posts an event on Facebook and invites people. The reactions are funny. If you’re throwing a party, what’s important? The people who can come, or the people who can’t? The people who CAN, right? And yet, for every event on Facebook it’s interesting to witness the people who post why they cannot attend AND a reason, sometimes several.

We don’t care. At a very basic level, life isn’t about those who cannot attend our parties. It’s about those who can. Such is life. It's the CAN, not the CAN'T, that is important.

I read a book 20 years ago that talked about this: The Magic of Thinking Big. It was “The Secret” before “The Secret.” (By the way, The Secret isn’t a secret to anyone who has ever shopped in the self-improvement aisle.) The Magic of Thinking Big had a chapter devoted to this: “Cure yourself of excusitis, the failure disease.”

It’s okay, really. It’s okay to want cheeseburgers. It’s okay to love to watch Survivor: Albuquerque instead of taking that course on Picasso’s paintings. What’s most frustrating isn’t that we prioritize these things poorly. If I had a dollar for everything I wanted to do but haven’t done, I would have a whole bunch of dollars. Whoop de doo. Hello, life. Who cares about all the things we haven’t done that we meant to? What’s frustrating is that we act as if it’s just too hard for us to make simple changes to our lives, and then we build a mountain of crappy evidence for our lifestyle defense case, just in case anyone asks and we have to defend ourselves in the court of What Are You Doing With Your Life. Guilt much?

Excusitis: “No, I cannot do that thing that will make me/our society better. I HAVE to take my wife/offspring/gerbil in for their flu/bubonic plague/tequila shots that day.” So you’re totally busy. All day.

Full disclosure. I happen to have a penchant for zombie video games. This is about as useful of a skill as being able to tie balloons around my waist with hairbands. I’m telling you this not so you’ll take pity on my perverse attraction to games in which I have to shoot things that are dead until they are really really dead, but so you understand that I, too, have useless things in my life that attract me away from my more noble efforts, like working out, planning healthy things to eat, painting the trim in our house, flossing the cat, or railing against American Stupidity.

But I own it. I don’t make excuses for what I don’t want to do. I accept myself for being pretty lame some days, and semi-productive on others.

Own your excuses. If you don’t want to work out, admit it – don’t claim you are too busy. We do what we want, when we want, for the most part, don’t we? When was the last time you REALLY wanted to do something – REALLY – and couldn’t find the time to do it? We aren’t slaves to our lives, though we do have definite demands on them. Saying “yes” is great and all, but it shouldn’t be this hard for us to say “no.”

Let’s all own our sh*t. Let’s all revel in our guilty pleasures, acknowledge we aren’t perfect, and try to move forward. Keep it real. “No, I can’t go help you move your couch because I want to sit on my ass and catch up on Game of Thrones.” “No, I won’t be on the condo board because I am a lazy bastard who enjoys beer too much. Sorry.” Or this oldie but a goodie: simply “no.”

Wouldn’t that be refreshing?