If there’s anything I’ve learned from my recent attempts to secure a second job by parading myself place to place with a resume in hand, it’s this: I have a lousy wardrobe. I’m twenty-nine, but I dress like a twelve-year old. My usual get-up is a pair of well-worn jeans or jean shorts, a t-shirt with some slogan or band name emblazoned on the front, and Dallas Cowboy-colored tennis shoes (even though I’m a Giants fan). The few times that I have dressed up, I have requested that someone take a picture to prove that I clean up good. I’m only half-joking when I ask them to do that.

It’s not that I don’t have nice clothes; it’s just that I can’t seem to find them. As I write this, my closet is full of t-shirts, sweat-shirts, some old dress pants that I never wear unless there’s a wedding or a funeral, some shirts that I’ve outgrown either in height or girth, and my graduation gowns from both high school and college (because you never know when those will come into handy). My favorite shirt, which I wear with pride, has the Pillsbury Doughboy on it and brings endless amusement to my toddler cousins. For some reason, I’ve got four or five gray shirts, even though my favorite color is blue. I’ve also got some jeans that have worn out as my top-notch metabolism has worn off over the years. And that’s about it, apart from some decent collared shirts, a few nice button-up shirts, and my blue sports coat.

Clearly none of this is appropriate to wear to job interviews or to drop off my resume, never mind that I might never hear back from the people I dress up nice for. If clothes make the man, I am a little boy, and for the most part I’ve been cool with that. Given my brief forays into trying to be fashionable (I shudder to think that there might be photographs of me in parachute pants with a high-top fade and a “Frankie Says Relax!” t-shirt), I feel comfortable being left behind by the beautiful and stylish people. What looks fashionable today will look ridiculous ten years from now (unless you’re Paris Hilton, in which case you’ll look ridiculous right away).

But even if I were to get a job with a company that requires some formal dress for the workplace, I’m still screwed. Like I said, I have very little in the way of business dress, or even business casual. I’m not exactly bringing in the big bucks (hence the need for a second job), so I can’t really afford anything nicer until I start getting a second paycheck or win it all on “Jeopardy.” I believe they have a dress code as well: dress as Alex dresses.

Forgetting the usual wear and tear of being worn by an active young man, my clothes also have to survive the twin troubles of my grandparents’ washer and dryer. The new ones don’t rip apart clothes like the old ones did (I swear gremlins must’ve lived in the old ones, feeding on my once expansive Beatles shirt collection), but they only have two cycles: Off and Bleach All Dark-Colored Clothes. Maybe that explains my gray shirts; they were blue or black when I bought them.

I could rail against the unfair practice of having to dress up in order to impress potential employers, how it paints a false picture of yourself because you’re just going dress up and wash your hair that one time, then proceed to slack it up when you’ve gotten the job. I could whine about the various female relatives who’ve tried to give me a fashion makeover and get me out of my Death Cab for Cutie t-shirts and into Abercrombie and Fitch. I could even bemoan the fact that I secretly like looking nice in clothing, because people underestimate me in my everyday dress. But I’ll just say that being “fashion forward” isn’t my thing, because at some point fashion will catch up to you and leave you behind. Besides, the girls who would go crazy for a sharp-dressed man probably aren’t the kind of girls I like anyway.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going throw on my nice dress shirt, blue sports coat, and fancy khaki pants. Why, you ask? No reason…