space for rent
As a child, I biked to swim practice each morning with beach towels embroidered with the logotype of my father's brokerage, carried in a duffel bag embroidered with the logotype of this or that mutual fund. My parents couldn't countenance buying brand-name towelry or luggage when we had ample freebies, and why should they?: this was primo shit… just, you know, belogoed.

For my part, I drank their Kool Aid and came to believe the Wall Street logoswag bespoke my own wealth and importance. Not just anyone carries a Templeton Funds duffel, you prole.

Yes, I was a Cool Kid. Everyone else knew it, too. This culminated, in fourth or fifth grade, with my being dunked in a urinal by Lucas Ahlstrand and one of the Gearhart brothers. The rest of our teammates cheered them along. I look back not with bitterness: I agree I had it coming.

(Revenge was sweet, actually. After the dunking incident, I penned an eloquent complaint and got them both suspended for the rest of the season. Of course, five years later, Lucas would resurface to date the girl I loved, and it didn't even surprise me. We're stuck in a lifelong archrivalry now, senseless and unending, as these things tend to be. Tune in about a decade from now, when I hire someone to blow up his garage. This isn't over, Ahlstrand....)

All of this is to say, dignity wasn't my bag, so to speak. And I still haven't learned the logoswag lesson:



In 2008, it is late in the laundry cycle, and I am lazy.

Having more or less completely repressed painful memories of my awkward adolescence, today I wore multiple, cacophonous swag items to work. No clients, just phone calls, I rationalized... — but I overlooked the fact that the kinds of kids who beat me up in grammar school are precisely the kinds of kids who grow up to be marketing and public relations middle managers.

I was not thrown in any toilets today, but I could have been. Perhaps I should've been.