Jim Kershner: There’s a new kid in town, and he’s in a tux

Man must be the only creature on earth that actually prefers to look sloppy.

By man, I mean, men. Women, once again demonstrating their more-evolved state, often prefer to look nice. Yet men almost always opt for the frayed jeans, the scuffed sneakers and the wrinkled T-shirt, emblazoned with “Eagles Reunion Tour, 1994.”

And I mean, at Easter dinner.

I’ve been pondering this issue because last week I rented a tuxedo. As I admired myself in the mirror, two thoughts occurred to me:

Thought No. 1: “Dang! Is that me? I had no idea I was such a handsome, sophisticated, elegant gentleman.”

Thought No. 2: “Why don’t I wear a tuxedo more often – as in, more than once in each millennium?”

I’m having trouble remembering when I last wore a tuxedo, but I’m pretty sure it was at a wedding. It might – just possibly – have been my own. That was in 1977. Clearly, it has been a long, long drought between cummerbunds.

I have only two arguments in my defense, the first being that there are precious few occasions, at least in my social circle, where a tuxedo is appropriate. I can imagine the scene if I decided to show up at a gathering one day in a tuxedo:

Me: Hello, gang. Just thought I’d dress for the occasion.

My friends: What the …?

Me: I’ve decided it’s a good idea to try to look one’s best.

My friends: Well, that’s great, but we’re going to drink beer and then go out back and burn a slash pile.

I have, of course, worn a suit on numerous occasions over the past 30 years, probably at least 12 or 13 occasions. Yet a full tuxedo would have been inappropriate even for most of these occasions, on the principle that (1) A guest at a wedding (or even the minister) shouldn’t be dressed better than the groom, and (2) A tuxedo is a faux pas at a funeral because … well, it’s not exactly the same as New Year’s Eve on the Queen Elizabeth II, now, is it?

Yet the second argument is simply: I’m a guy. Therefore, a slob.

Males develop an aversion to getting dressed up early in life. We consider it a massive pain in the neck.

I mean, literally, a pain in the neckline area. Millions of American men of a certain age are permanently scarred around the collar region from being forced by their mothers to fasten the top button of a too-small shirt and wear a clip-on tie on Sunday morning. I don’t know why moms don’t notice the telltale signs of tie-related-torture – the painful corduroy skin-folds, the raw abrasions, the blood-flecked collar – but they don’t. They just tell their agony-ridden boys to “quit whining.”

These agonies were still fresh in my mind last week as I contemplated my tuxedo on a hanger. The old dread washed over me, the fear that I would be constrained, confined and positively strangulated – strangulated! – all in the name of fashion.

So I gingerly started to don the arcane objects of black-tie costume: The shiny black shoes, the pleated shirt, the studs, the cuff-links, the weird vest thingy that you have to pull over your head. It suddenly occurred to me: It wasn’t painful at all.

My tuxedo was fitted precisely to my measurements, which meant that, while my shirt had pleats, my neck-skin had, refreshingly, none. The shoes did not pinch, the vest did not bind, and my beer-gut did not pop the buttons on my ever-so-elegant black jacket.

Apparently, this whole “formal, tailored attire” business has its advantages. Who knew? I’ve spent a lifetime buying clothes off the rack, and I mean the “clearance” rack, which encourages a certain cavalier attitude about size, as in, “Sure, it’s an XXXL, but it’s cotton. It’ll shrink – I hope by 50 percent.”

So now I’m sold on the appeal of formal wear. In fact, I’m thinking it would make sense for me to buy my own tuxedo. It would pay for itself in three outings. If the Spokane Dinner Club, where I wore my tuxedo this week, ever invites me back, then all I have to do is find two other places to wear it.

Anyone planning an elegant, formal slash-burning party?