Sunday, September 11, 2011

Wow, What Strict Dress Rules!

We all know that many schools have dress rules. In my day, about the only school dress rule I remember for the girls is that girls couldn’t wear “spaghetti straps” to school. Their shoulders had to be covered.
The guys could wear slippers to school (you gotta remember, this was in Hilo, Hawaii), but no shorts. Only long pants. No tee-shirts, either. Our shirts had to have buttons. And nobody wore baseball caps to school.
School dress rules have relaxed a lot … ridiculously relaxed.
And so, it surprised me to see this sign on the entrance to a liquor/souvenir store in Las Vegas:

I had seen the central theme of the sign before: “NO shows/shirt/service.” Of course, that means if you aren’t wearing shoes, and/or a shirt, then they won’t serve you. They also won’t let you in if you have sagging pants (I guess butt cracks are definitely out of style).
I know what bandanas are. But y’know, call me ignorant, but I had no idea what “Doo-Rags” were. To me, it sounded like cloth toilet paper. But who the heck carries cloth toilet paper around anyway? (Um, excuse me, but you dropped your cloth toilet paper, sir.)
So I looked it up.
You know what they are? They’re these cloth rags that African-Americans wrap around their heads to cover their hair. The interesting thing is that doo-rags (more commonly spelled “do-rags”) have been around since the 1800s. Freedom fighters used them. So did that famous Rosie the Riveter in the wartime poster.
Boy, that’s pretty strict to ban them from the store. I guess it’s okay to wear a hairnet?

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