The Dangers of Wearing Suspenders/Braces: A Picture Story

I realise that this blog isn't really built for fashion blogging and all the things that come with it. I also realise that I am not your ideal fashion blogger for reasons that I shall list below.

• I'm far too short and unhandsome to be anything that closely resembles a model. 
• I've got into this bad habit of pin rolling my trousers. 
• I have the posture of a 90 year old slave. 

Even with all of these constraints, I find that I must take pictures of myself in the unlikeliest of positions while I tell myself the following. 

• Raise chin! No! Lower chin by the slightest degree. 
• Chest out. Tummy in. Clench buttocks. 
• Be sure to talk all the way through it. You are completely incapable of striking a half decent pose. 

All of this is in preparation for a watch that I'm somewhat contractually bound to blog about. If you're good enough to send me a product because of theramblingsofamadman-afam.com then I'll do you the good honour of telling everyone what I think of it. . And so we begin. This is a moment in the life of an International Journalism Masters Student at City University London.

I was walking around the journalism department in a Uniqlo white thermal tee, Hawes and Curtis suspenders/braces, American Apparel trousers, and my ever reliable and foot destroying Russel and Bromley tasseled loafers. They've given me blisters at my ankles and corns on my toes, but there's nothing I won't do for the extra inch that their hard sole provides.

I walk around like so when my brain gets hot, and my eyes start to sting from looking at a computer screen. 

That was when one of my course mates asked if she could have a little fun at my expense and yank my suspenders. They didn't know what they were in for. I was wound as tightly as a cork and looking for an excuse to act my shoe size. 

 "So you mean to tell me that you want to snap my suspenders?"

"What do you hope to accomplish?"

The tirade was locked and loaded with rhetorical questions. Any Nigerian worth his crude will tell you that there's nothing like a rhetorical question. They're the conversational bombs you need to explode any argument and they don't have to make any sense at all.

"Are you the spawn of a devilish fly and a baboonish gorilla?"

The victim of your tirade will be at a loss for words. His or her mouth will flap like a runner at the end of his tether. Then you'll take advantage of the silence to land a few more critical blows.

"I can't believe it. What kind of a bombastic element are you?"

"Do you mean to ruin my nipples?"

"Don't you know that my nipples are among black Jesus' most treasured possessions?"

 After all of that, I turned to my audience to voice my confusion.

"Why did she come and find my trouble today, is she a rat?"

They were stunned. It is one thing to observe a verbal beating, but it is another to be asked to join a lynching.

"Afam! Don't you think you're taking it too far?" They asked.

I was ready for them.

"So you mean to tell me that you were just going to let her violate my body?"

"You people are the reason why that internship has not landed on my lap."

"Do you see how you have all become the enemies of my progress?"

After my explosion I turned my back to them and went to the window to hold back my laughter. Sometimes, to be productive we must do the most irrational things, like dance on empty streets, and watch motivational videos on youtube that tell us how every day lived only serves as the launching pad for future successes.

For all my rambling, I didn't really mind the idea of it. I only thought that it would set a bad precedent. If my suspenders are yanked everytime I wear them then I would be very uncomfortable indeed; ninety nine and three-quarters per cent guaranteed.

I looked to my audience and said, "Can you see what you have caused? Be sure to apologise to my nipples personally."

With that, I agreed to one pull.

She obliged.

And we all lived stroppily ever after.

The End