So much cheap, gaudy shit!
I work in an industry with a lot of guys wearing ties, and occasionally (if completely insufferable) cufflinks. In the last 15 years I've not seen anyone wearing a tie clip who wasn't also wearing a short-sleeve shirt and a pocket protector.
And a Parker pen from Target? Please. The correct pen is always Mont Blanc. Always.
Let me tell you a story, Junior. About 10 years ago I was working in my firm's Tokyo office, and had to fly back to Arkansas for a meeting (ugh!); cleverly, I arranged it so that I would have an 18-hour layover in Los Angeles, which I intended to spend snorting coke and eating the puss(ies) of some whore(s) at a club recommended by the mighty Z-Bone. At the airport I changed clothes, rented a car and drove off to Inglewood, because the area around the airport is where all the buck-wild black whores are, and I like both their pussies and the ease with which they allow access to those pussies.
Stupidly, I went looking for the dope before going to the strip club (at that time I was still too young to know that strip-club whores always have drugs, and will sell to you to make mo' money). And in my eagerness to get high after I scored I let my situational awareness drop and got myself robbed and car-jacked by the neighborhood welcome committee. Coked-up and on foot, in a polo shirt and jeans (and sandals!), I walked across Inglewood, crying just a little and hoping someone would help me.
Finally I came to a parking lot, and I zeroed in on a guy in a suit getting out of a Mercedes. I told him my tale of woe, no doubt only barely coherently since I was high as a kite, and asked for $25 cab fare so I could get back to the airport and to safety (and the $10,000 in cash I had stashed in my suitcase). The promise was of course, mister, I'll send you a check if you give me your card.
I got the $25. The guy told me he was just about to dismiss me as just another panhandling kid, albeit a slightly better-dressed one, when he noticed the Mont Blanc fountain pen tucked into the collar of my shirt. That pen marked me as a fellow professional, one of the tribe, and thus worthy of his trust in giving me $25. I shudder to think what might have happened to me with one of your cheap-shit Parker pens. Or one of those tie tacks!
The car was rented on an American Express card. Turns out, if you rent with Amex you can do whatever the fuck you want with the car. From now on, I'm selling them bitches.
So, Alex, you can throw out all that gaudy shit. I don't wear a watch (why should I, when the Blackberry has a clock?), ring (I know plenty of ring-knockers, but mine's in a drawer), cufflinks, bracelet, chain, or tie tack. But I never go anywhere without a Mont Blanc Meisterstück fountain pen. For your reference, Trailer Park Alex, it looks like this:
