Bland Man with the Tan Pants

"I love you no matter what you wear," he said.

"I love you in spite of what you wear," I replied.

He was wearing TAN PANTS. The scourge of my existence, of the Harvard fashion scene, of your grandfather's wardrobe. Tan pants.

Nearly everyone wears them. In core sections you can easily spot five out of nine men in khakis. A dangerous wardrobe choice. Yet the boy had the audacity to ask me, "what's wrong with tan pants?"

The first problem is that they are tan. Tan is the color of boredom. It is the color of dry dirt. It is the color of the junk you dig out of your eyes in the morning. There is nothing interesting of significant about the color tan. Note the vowelrhyme with 'Bland.'

Many Harvardians wear tan pants in place of blue-jeans. They get dirty in khakis. They wear them on dorm crew. Khakis infringe on the fashion space reserved for jeans, which is and unforgivable trespass.

Jeans have roguish past. They are signifiers of untamed wilderness and rebellious vigor. Tan pants put you in mind of, well, the Ivy League. How exciting is that? It's really east coast WASPs versus the melting pot of the other 45 states. It's downright un-American not to worship the frontier.

When asked what her associations with khakis were, one senior in Dunster replied: "White men on safari. Drunk colonialists raping a country and giving it religion and disease." Would she don a pair? "No. They're definitely not hip for a post-post-modern world."

She added "They're worn because of erections. Puritans aren't supposed to have desires. Pleats in the front, no unsightly bulges."

Chinos are undoubtedly convenient. That extra fabric in the pleats hides any number of physical abnormalities. It's neither creative nor solution-oriented to wear the same style from the days of your six-pack to the days of your beer-gut. It's just plain lazy. Although an informercial currently in heavy rotation does offer a wrinkle and stain-free pair of those classic chinos, (for the low low price of $29.95!) one should remember that trousers are not wall-to-wall carpeting.

We need boundaries in a topsy-turvy universe. Laudable blue-jeans are purely casual. There are no such rules for khakis other than their acknowledged unobtrusiveness. From a final club punch to an impromptu frisbee match, they are the same unwavering anti-statement.

As a senior put it, "Why wear something that goes with everything? God already gave us skin."

The most offensive quality of tan pants is their timelessness. Look at those pictures of your grandfather at Harvard. (If you love chinos, either your granddad went here or you are preparing to be a Harvard grandfather.) He has a welltrimmed haircut and no beard. He looks like you, only in sepia. Nothing has changed in the last 60years. And if you have your way, nothing will.

Tan pants are the fashion choice of stagnation. The emblem of conservatism. They supplant democratic jeans. The masses of the Culturally Mediocre should know that Miles might have worn khakis, but he didn't realize what they represent. He should have found himself a comfy pair of 50Is.