Recently, I was asked the question, “How much is too much for a pair of shorts?” Why should you spend a significant amount of your disposable income on shorts? I suppose I can think of a few reasons. Those who wear shorts often and in more semi-formal situations certainly could spend a bit more money on a nice pair. You can wear well-fitting shorts with a blazer and look well-dressed. You can wear well-fitting shorts with a T-shirt and look laid back. A pair of expensive shorts that fit perfectly can get you through a number of wardrobe situations when the temperature rises. Having only one of those “perfect” pairs, you can have a tighter, more concise wardrobe. However, I’m not here to sell you some shorts from Burkman Bros., in fact, I’m here to do the complete opposite. I’m here to tell you why I would never spend a lot of money on a pair of shorts.
It was early summer and the muggiest kind of hot. I was wearing shorts. My mother was taking my siblings and I to a church camp where we would help the maintenance guys by weeding and watering some gardens and we decided that our family dog would come with us. We had let her off the leash that morning and she had come back just in time to get put back on and loaded into the van. Once we got on the winding roads, our dog started to act funny. She began burping and looking at me forebodingly and, being a responsible kid, I told my mom that our dog was “acting funny." It was around that time that we went around a particularly tight turn and our dog lurched forward in her seat.
As it turned out, our dog had been dining during her morning in the woods—a three-course feast with the main dish being deer poop—and her meal was not sitting as she had hoped. She coughed, in that way that dogs do when they have something in their throat, and then she emptied the contents of her stomach onto my lap.
I think I might have screamed.
For me, spending a lot of money on a pair of shorts is stupid because you do all the best summer activities in shorts. You hike, you work in the yard, you paint, you barbeque—you do the things that you do as an active person enjoying the summer. Those activities come at a high risk to the garments you wear and I’ve got better things to do than worry about a pair of shorts that cost more than a Weber grill. Quite frankly, you can wear any pair of shorts with a blazer and look well dressed. You can wear any pair of shorts with a T-shirt and look laid back. Shorts aren’t held to the same standard as our blazers and trousers, for a reason, so don’t fuss about them. Buy some cheap shorts from Old Navy or Nautica and go spend your money on something that you’ll really enjoy this summer, like a bunch of illegal fireworks or, even, a dog that, hopefully, won’t be puking shit into you lap anytime soon. And, if she does, who cares? They cost less than her leash.
John Lugg is a blogger living in Pennsylvania. He enjoys making tuna salad and watching movies based off of Jeff Shaara novels. You can read his personal blog here and follow him on Twitter here.
