My Sad Suit.

The sad suit became mine when the words were purred softly into my ear. 

"You look wonderful"

The suit store, you see, had the most successful strategy ever for selling suits to men. A busty blonde in a micro-mini who dotes attention on you for the better part of an hour, then finally stands behind you in a mirror and tells you you look wonderful. That, my friends, is the way to sell a lot of suits. Once those words went into my ear, price became no object. 

Besides, I was buying the suit for a trip to Las Vegas. Land of debauchery and excess and a monument to the American principle of just letting go and feeling good for awhile. Vegas makes very few truly happy, but it makes people feel good by the millions, and it was my turn. I was gonna look good as well.

The trip to Vegas never happened, but I kept the suit, because it really did make me look good. I wore it today for the second time. When I put it on, I found the program from the other funeral. The suit born of my want of hedonistic pleasure has only come out when it is time to grieve. The irony. Man plans, God laughs. 

I don't blame the suit though. It doesn't know. Even though it is blue, which is appropriate, it's not the cause of the sadness that brings it out. As a matter of fact, I was kinda proud of the suit today. Someone was murdered. And in response, the suit was part of a demonstration of decency, of kindness and caring, of community and civility that no dirtbag has the power to destroy. The body of the dirtbag will someday rot away uncared for. Today though, I had an incredibly hard time trying to find a parking space in order to pay tribute to a good person. It says a lot about your life when your funeral can create a traffic jam, and on an overwhelmingly sad day, I've never been so happy to have to work so hard to park. Maybe we're not all doomed. 

Having said that though, I hope it's a good long time before I see the sad suit again.