On the fourth day of last week (counting from Monday)—or possibly the fifth day (counting from Sunday)—I entered my four-wheeled road vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine and transported myself (and it) to the local enclosed building containing shops, restaurants, and other businesses and facilities serving the general public, where I intended to exchange currency for fabric that covers the body and is arranged into pleasing new configurations for the upcoming season.

The mall is hideous—a wasteland—but it was the only place I could think of to buy clothing that would make me look moderately presentable at work and beyond. The clothes at the hemp store look like ill-fitting planetary uniforms worn by Star Trek aliens, and I have never gotten the rhythm of thrift shopping, where the secret is to buy clothes that did not go out of fashion recently enough to have been the ones I just donated, or long enough ago that people will think I have been saving my high school wardrobe until it returns triumphantly into vogue.

Christmas money was burning a hole in my pocket, but it might as well have bored a hole into the center of the earth for all the good it did me. This season at the Banana Republic is such a snoozefest that the most riveting thing I encountered there were the naked male mannequins (can anyone say “dress left”?). Express for Men was overrun by cardboard boxes filled with their entire inventory from last season, on clearance. All of the shirts and pants that I wanted but didn’t buy this fall looked about as appealing as stale Captain Crunch in this undignified situation. I could not even be bothered to breathe in the direction of the Gap, except I did walk past it on the way to Dairy Queen.

Boy’s gotta eat. I mean, young male humanoid requires solid sustenance ingested orally.