Tie a Day, Number 53

Sam, my six year old son, asked me yesterday if he could help me pick out a tie to wear. Of course, I said, “Yes!”

I tried to narrow down his choices from the remaining 80 or so ties I still have not worn, but he was having none of that, he wanted to see all of his choices. I was a little worried because I had already ironed my shirt and I was afraid that he would pick a tie that completely clashed with what I had prepared. Luckily, I remembered the golden rule of men’s wear, as long as you wear solid colors almost any tie will work. This is how I came to place my fate in the hands of a child who wears horizontal and vertical stripes together in the same shirt and pants combination.

I know that what Sam wears he likes, and that is much more important than matching. So I let him pick out his clothes while he can still get away with that approach. Once you get a little older, everyone offers their opinion, but when you are six, people say things like, “Awesome Transformers shirt!” And isn’t that all that really matters?

In the end, he gave me a choice. I could wear the Calvin and Hobbes tie today, or the tie that I have that has a picture of his brother, Calvin on it. Whichever tie I didn’t wear today, I have to wear tomorrow.

This Calvin and Hobbes tie is special to me because my wife Amy gave it to me when I was still teaching Kindergarten, before we were married. I believe it was 1994. We have always loved the Calvin and Hobbes comics and joked that our child would end up to be exactly like the Calvin in the strip. After we found out that Amy was pregnant, we had months of discussions on possible baby names (I wanted to carry on the family name with the 5^th in the Doss male series, and Amy did not) we could only find common ground with one name, Calvin. This is how we named our first son (as a compromise he has my middle name; that is as far as she would go).

Calvin was a much better name than the extreme name that I picked out. I only made it up to force Amy to see what great mistake it would be to pass on my name. The crazy name that I adopted involved clicks, a whistle and a smoochy sound strung together to form a completely unspellable name. The idea was that if I wouldn’t budge on the ridiculous extreme name, then she would have to give up and and the family name would live on.

Amy is too smart for me and knew I would fold; and I am glad. But it still makes me laugh to think of a teacher on nthe first day of school trying to call roll and reaching a unspellable name...

"Would 2 clicks, a whistle and smoochy sound Doss please raise his hand?"