Orange You Glad You Got Out Of That One?

In the early 2000s, there was something of a fad where people buy outfits where every part of the outfit matched color — shirt, jacket, pants, even shoes in some cases. So, you’d see guys buying a red shirt to go with a red jacket or red vest, and red pants to match their red shoes. That kind of thing.

One customer came in, and after some wrangling, I’d managed to get a good sale out of him buying one of these “everything matches” outfits. He was pleased with himself, though moderately annoyed that we didn’t have shoes to match. Even so, he got some nice new white sneakers with it, so he left happy. He was a regular, and I struck up a conversation with him about it, as I’d never seen him put so much money down on just one outfit before. He explained that he was heading to Atlanta to see a friend and then hoped to hit up one or two of the clubs. All good.

Curiously, after that, I didn’t see him for a good month, to a month and a half. Normally, he was in there every payday, so I started to wonder.

All is revealed when he finally returns. I strike up a conversation with him, asking how his trip went.

Customer: “Terrible, man, just terrible.”

Me: *Innocently* “Clubs weren’t open or something?”

He shakes his head.

Customer: “Nah, that d*** outfit got me in trouble.”

My curiosity is piqued.

Me: “How so?”

Customer: “Got me put in jail. Took them two days to figure out the mistake, but by then, they found some old failure to appear warrant, and I ended up having to stay in there until the judge could finally dismiss the thing.”

I found myself marveling at this. How could an outfit get someone put in jail? That’s when it dawned on me.

Remember how I said everything had to match? Yeah… about that.

The guy had bought a bright orange shirt, bright orange vest, bright orange slacks, and bright white sneakers. At the time, Atlanta’s jails had inmates wear bright orange jumpsuits… and white shoes. It turned out that the day he went, there’d been an escape.

I guess the moral of the story is, don’t wear any clothing that makes you look like an escaped prisoner.

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