Suit and Consequence
“The good news,” I said, “is that someday someone will pass away and I’ll have the right suit to wear.”
The remark made a friend laugh as I later retold the story. I had purchased a two-piece black suit to wear at a wedding back home in Puerto Rico and was suffering from an acute case of buyer’s remorse.
My friend Joe and I had visited a popular men’s clothing outlet in New Jersey’s Secaucus Outlets, one of those that remains in business yet there are few customers in sight. I tried on a two-button, black suit under a lot of pressure from a salesman and was pondering whether or not to purchase it. At $80, the suit was still beyond my means. I own a gray sports jacket, but I was told – no, let me rephrase – threatened that I had to wear a black suit or else.
With my head bowed and feeling like I’d left part of my soul at that counter, I walked out of the mall and headed into Jersey traffic. Why had I gone further in debt if I couldn’t afford the suit? It was – I kept reminding myself – a “Christmas” wedding. Transgressions on such rituals are met with double the punishment, at least in my country.
The ballooning sense of irresponsibility I felt might seem petty to some, but it really isn’t. I had relocated to New York and had managed to mine a gaping crack on my bank account. Before, I’d doubled as a copywriter and SAT teacher to make ends meet. Having lived in the flesh the hardship of unemployment and the fear of foreclosure, I couldn’t fathom why I still put myself at risk in the holiday season. And I’m sure I’m not the only one out there, dishing money for suits and Christmas trees and Wii’s. I couldn’t help but ask, ‘Why are we digging ourselves into deeper financial holes around the holidays in these historically uncertain times?’
So I set out to find the answer. One friend summed it up nicely: “I am not sure, it’s a tradition”. Perhaps that is exactly the problem: we do it because it’s an expected ritual just like brushing our teeth or taking the train to work.
This we know and we also might be aware of theories that give similar answers. Readers of Theodor W. Adorno (I raise my hand) agree that all consumption rituals satisfy but one objective: to buy into a preconceived idea of a perfect society. We purchase to fit in, if you will. And hence we live in search of a fantasy in order to oil the gears of our capitalist machine, which in turn gives us buying power and so the wheels turn and turn. Yep, I know it sounds like The Matrix.
But that machine stopped working years ago, at least for a lot of folks who are unemployed, rely on food stamps and struggle to put food on the table. You’d think that with unemployment soaring at 8.6 percent (around 16 percent in Puerto Rico) people might exercise a bit of caution.
Americans indulge with yuletide optimism each holiday season. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), spending won’t be minced anytime soon. In October, the NRF predicted holiday sales to augment $465.6 billion, an increase of 2.8 percent, which helps our country’s economy move along, but it’s the method that worries me, and a whole lot of people. How are we paying for these goods and what good does it do to spend if we later can’t pay off the credit cards?
Some say, “Budget and you’ll be saved.” But budgeting is an act of recognition and people suffer from severe financial blindness during this season. We dream of “purchasing power”. Sitting down and facing those numbers reminds us that, at the end of the day –or in this case, the year– we wield no power at all.
I don’t aim to take the cheer out of these joyous days. When I think of Christmas, my fondest thoughts travel to our first home in Caguas, Puerto Rico. Amidst the sounds of little frogs called coquies and a rickety Christmas tree adorned with Spanish marionettes from Santiago de Compostela, my mom would sit us in a circle around the tree and would intone local holiday carols. My dad was still at the hospital taking wounded holiday patients. Even today I get emotional when I think about those days. I’m not sure why; my mom is helplessly tone deft.
But that is the ideal we want to buy into, those are the memories we want to preserve or perhaps, even create. And we are willing to give it a try, even if it’s through traditional methods of economic self-flagellation.
Last night, I went home, put on the wedding suit, and faced the mirror in my hall. Staring at it for a few seconds, I think I understood the whole suit scenario. In the mirror I saw that guy everyone wants to be around. Also, what a better way to tell your friend who’s getting hitched, “Hey, I’m also doing okay!”
But I am a pragmatist. I see the suit and calculate when and how it will render results expected and there’s got be a couple more weddings and a funeral.
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I’m having the same issue with the thought of buying a Tux. Been to three weddings over the last year that have indicated “formal wear” on the invitation. I just go wearing my work suit.