Deep Fried Eagle

So last night I ran out of smokes about an hour before Amy got off of work. I debated whether to send her a text to pick some up from the store on her way home, or go get some myself. Both scenarios were kinda lame. One one hand, I didn’t want to wait an hour for a cigarette. I wanted one immediately. On the other hand, I was already in my “PJ’s, which really just consist of basketball shorts that I would never wear in public and an XL swag shirt. You know, the kind that you get for free for some reason or another that you would never wear as regular attire, but rather wash your car with. Or in my case, wear as PJ’s. So anyhow, I decided to run up to Walgreens and grab some stoags. Sure, I was in a huge dress-sized t-shirt and had my “evening glasses” on (Huge black-rimmed nerd glasses that allow me to see the TV while reclined), but this was serious business. I needed smokes. Plus, I figured that every time I’m in that place the line usually consists of a diverse array of disheveled patrons and generally scummy people.

As I left, I realized I was still barefoot. Oh well, they won’t see my feet. I’ll have made the transaction before they realize that I was dressed for bed, anyway. As I drove the block towards Walgreens, I wondered if they would tell me I needed shoes to be in there. I knew that would be an acceptable request if I was actually walking the aisles and shopping, but I was literally walking 5 feet inside the door to the register. Then it got me thinking about a sign that used to be on every establishment window when I was growing up: “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service”. Whatever happened to that saying? Did they decide to just say “fuckit, come as you are”? Perhaps those signs were posted so long, that the general public kinda got the hint that they wouldn’t be served without being fully clothed and they didn’t need to be reminded any longer? When did the signs come down? Whenever they did, I certainly didn’t notice.

So I bought my goods without any reprimand and headed back home. Of course, I pulled in and Amy was home. My trip could have been avoided if I had just chilled out and asked her to get me some instead of having a nic fit, but then again I wouldn’t have been posed with the “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service” conundrum. I always give Amy time to unwind before trying to talk to her too much. After all, I get 2 hours to myself after work to chill out and I don’t have anyone up my ass right when I walk in the door except dogs. And they don’t ask questions like I do. So in giving Amy her space, I had time to think more about what will now be called the NSNSNS Question.

I guess this was a problem in the 70’s and early 80’s. I seem to remember not wearing shoes if I didn’t have to throughout most of my childhood. My feet were so calloused, I could walk across hot pavement like a fire walker across coals. I also remember most of the heshers never wore shirts. My older cousins and all their friends were all heshers, and I remember all of them were usually just wearing cutoff jean shorts with a comb in their back pocket. I myself was guilty of wearing those (in retrospect GAY) half-shirts all the time. This lack of clothing was rampant in the 80’s, too. Just think about the scene in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” where Spiccoli and his friends come into Bronco Burger and get the classic line “You guys had shirts on when you came in here! See that sign? Learn it. Know it. LIVE it.” I guess that’s just the way it was. As an aside, everybody had washboard abs back then. Everybody.

So when did we guys put our shirts and shoes back on? I missed the transition from being bare chested and bare footed to wearing layers of clothes. I remember both distinctly, but the line between the eras has been blurred. I remember being shoeless in my short lived dope-smoking-Pink Floydian-Tyedyed-wannabe hippy days, but I would have never gone without a shirt. Perhaps of self-conscious body issues, or perhaps no one would know I was a stoner unless I was wearing some sort of t-shirt that announced my freakdom. I think I remember being told that I needed shoes to come into certain places, but my recollection is hazy. Sometime in the 20 years since then, we men finally didn’t need to be told to put a damn shirt on. It’s just a given that you wear a shirt and at LEAST flip-flops. I don’t know anybody who would just chill shirtless, and I suppose I haven’t for a while. I mean, I don’t even do it at home, much less out in public. I even have a reason to with all the tattoos I’ve been working on! Now I’m obsessed with the concept of being told that you will not be recognized or served without being properly clothed. From now on, I will be hyper-aware of any establishments that may display the NSNSNS signage. Restaurants and eateries are excluded, for obvious reasons. (I don’t even think you should be allowed to eat in public with a tank top on. No one wants to see your pit-pubes, Billy-Jack.) I’ll be looking for it wherever I go. I consider it a relic of my childhood, and I’ll smile inwardly knowing that at one point in my life, they meant “THIS MEANS YOU”.


“Somthin’ musta happened to ‘em, dude!”