One thing I absolutely do not miss about the working world is dressing like a grown up. My fashion has regressed to something close to a 16 year-old, usually involving sneakers, a baseball hat, shorts, and my all time favorite article of clothing: the hoodie. The hoodie is my friend, it covers all manner of ills. It is my security blanket and I love it dearly.
I used to be a regular sweatshirt guy. Then, my I started an ambitious expansion program which necessitated finding things to mask my expanding girth. After an unfortunate incident involving a girdle and a brief period of asphyxiation, I decided the best approach was going to be to just cover up my midsection. See, with a hoodie, I can put my hands in the front pocket. That way, the people who look at me will think that the bulge in my midsection is just the result of my hands resting in the pocket, and not the result of an infatuation with cheeseburgers and popcorn. Pretty smart eh? Now, getting ready consists of the following: take off pajama bottoms and replace with shorts. Throw on hoodie. (If day begins with letter T, brush teeth and apply deodorant.) Leave the house. The hoodie, as you can see, is the most versatile piece of fashion since mom jeans were invented.
It is precisely these reasons why the hoodie is the official fashion item for the stay at home dad. I don’t know if I should reveal this, but once you are initiated into the inner sanctum of the stay at home dad world, you are ushered into a small room for initiation. After some “rites of passage” involving two or three dozen hot dogs and a 12-pack of beer, you are presented with your very own hoodie to wear as a badge of honor. You then go forth and save the world, one child at a time. You can tell how experienced a stay at home dad is by the number of stains he has on the front of his hoodie. They are similar to the rings on the inside of an old redwood tree. It doesn’t matter how new the hoodie is, they follow you like the stink of a rental car even after you have returned it. I got a brand new hoodie a month ago, and it already has four stains on it, one for each year I have been at home with Malcolm.
It’s not all fun and games though. I recently lost one of my favorite hoodies of all time. I was pretty bummed when I lost the skull hoodie, I loved it and the kids that I hang with loved it too. 
The loss was about as emotional for me as losing our cats or Amy having jinxed the Giants into losing the World Series. I don’t know where you are out there skull hoodie, but know this: you will be missed. And tell the girdle that I am still mad at him.
Tags: fashion
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The girdle is a “him”? I’d of guessed otherwise.
I’m pretty sure there is a gang of hoodies under our house plotting to climb the night jasmine and surprise attack us in our sleep.
Totally not hoodie related, but you said random is cool in your pitch for blogplause (blog + applause, aka comments).
In the picture on the right side of your header, you look a LOT like Ed Helms (The Office’s Andy Bernard). In the other picture, not so much. That is all.
I saw Ed Helms do stand up once. Once.
It is sometimes hard to tell what gender your girdle is. I though I was getting a female at the store, but got quite a shock when I got home!