Fashion Kills

Fashion Kills

By Sean Fitzmorris

If there's one thing that changes, it's fashion. We've all been a slave to some form of the latest fads and styles. Poodle skirts and ducktails in the fifties, fringe and long hair in the sixties, Leisure Suit Larry of the seventies and the Big Hair eighties. Lately a popular and unfortunate fashion is the one where young men wear their pants down around their ass, often having to hold them up with one hand, eschewing belts or even sizes that fit. It has been rumored that the logic behind this is to show solidarity with their homeys in prison, where they supposedly just can't get pants that fit.

Role models aside, I have discovered another reason why this fad really should be put out of its misery. Oftentimes in my work as a paramedic I have to go on scenes where individuals have been murdered. Since this particular fad took hold, I can't help but notice that many of the young men I pronounce dead on the scene are (or rather, were) followers of the way-too-big pants thing as they lie in a pool of blood with their jeans down around their knees. It seems that their preoccupation with their trousers got in the way of their making a speedy escape from the line of fire. They probably would have been able to flee from their assailants had they not been so encumbered by their pants falling around their knees and ankles.

Unfortunate? Yes, but also true. I suppose it gives new meaning to the term "victim of fashion." Too bad the fashion police are never around when you need them.