Men, it’s winter, so put your pants on

Aweek after some inordinately balmy temperatures inverted Blawnox into Barbados and Jeannette into Jamaica around here, our return to a traditionally frigid winter ⁠reminds me to remind you — and by you I mean you men, please, puh-lease, put your pants on.

I don’t want to see your legs after Labor Day, really, but given my respect and admiration for former WDVE icon and noted humanitarian Sean McDowell, who always tried to wear shorts until at least Thanksgiving, I was willing to make Turkey Day my outer limit on this.

Naturally, certain cases were granted injunctive relief in this, my own pointless policy of unabashed judgmentalism.

When a friend retired to Florida, for example, he adopted a no-pants policy as a kind of mantra. Determined to be fairly stationary in his new environment, he felt that his long stay in America’s work force entitled him to substantial authority over his social schedule.

“If I have to put on pants,” was his motto, “I ain’t goin’.”

But that’s different. That’s Florida.

Here it’s the dead of winter. It’s cold, put some pants on. I don’t want to be standing in line at Giant Eagle with my field of vision invaded by your bare calves, knobby knees, and, God forbid, hairy thighs — extra pasty.

“That ticks me off to no end,” McDowell said when we talked the other day, “When I see that, I always think, ‘C’mon, man! Are you a Pittsburgher?’ When the warm weather lasts and it’s in the ’80s in October, people will say, ‘Oh, I want to wear my fall clothes!’ I always think, ‘What are you talking about? You’ll be scraping your windshield soon enough.’

“That’s a terrifying sound to me. It’s like cats screeching when I hear someone scraping their windshield.”

Thus I was heartened to hear that not only does Sean’s preference for shorts observe reasonable limits, he’s into long underwear as well. He’s nowhere near adhering to this brainless trend that tempts fully formed adult men into flaunting their bare-leggedness regardless of the wind chill.

No one ever claimed responsibility for this atrocity, but the first iteration/irritation for me came Dec. 11, 2005, an appropriately Pittsburgh afternoon of 32 degrees with 12 mph winds and blowing snow. I was comfortably situated in the climate controlled Heinz Field press box, enjoying random foodstuffs and the spectacle of Jerome Bettis steamrolling Chicago Bears’ linebacker Brian Urlacher for a second-half touchdown.

The snow had become a squall. Heinz Field was a snow globe.

Looking across the field at the Bears sideline, for what in particular I have no memory, I spotted in the miniblizzard a man holding a huge parabolic microphone, probably a network TV functionary of some description. His was wearing shorts. Snowing, howling wind, wind chill probably in the teens, but yeah, I’m good in these.

Didn’t check him for flipflops, but would it surprise you?

That’s almost 15 years ago, so we’re well into our second decade of men displaying their legs despite the frostbite warnings. If there is an explanation (and that’s highly dubious), it’s not that their legs are simply too beautiful to hide with insulating garmentry. Again, if you must uncover ’em, don’t go into Giant Eagle, where the lighting tends to bring out every imperfection such as any of several ⁠dermatological concerns — that long scar from your “football” injury and that purple mark from when you tweaked your hamstring getting off the toilet.

Oh wait, that was me. But here’s where the confessions start. I’m sorry for all of this because I really don’t care. I don’t care about my own appearance, obviously, so why should I care about yours? What really bothers me about your bare legs in the winter is more the fact that it bothers me at all. Why on earth would I care about your leg coverage? This annoys me 10 times as much as your pockmarked shins and puffy ankles.

Not surprisingly, I’m looking to blame somebody for this psychological malfunction, and I’ve settled on Sebastian Maniscalco, the gifted comic whose carefully calculated theatrics and rubber face are the secrets of one of America’s great stand-up acts.

Maniscalco lampoons his own fastidiousness and polished appearance. He doesn’t appear in jeans and a T-shirt on stage, but generally in stylish slacks and a tucked in shirt, sometimes a nice sweater. He’s particular about his appearance, and those of us who aren’t have begun to discomfit him.

His bit about arriving at a Las Vegas hotel begins:

“Isn’t anybody embarrassed anymore; is there any shame? I’m checkin’ into a $2 billion property, right? Beautiful. Italian marble. Five star restaurants. Chihuly art, hangin’ from the ceiling. And I look to my left at the check-in thing, and there’s a group checkin’ in with an Igloo Cooler. Not even a new one – duct tape on the handle. Ten cases of Schlitz. George Foreman Grill?

“What are you gonna do, grill chicken in the room? The place reeks of cash. Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis used to come, tuxedo, cufflinks, and you brought ... chicken?”

After further review, that probably doesn’t explain my problem anyway. I have no problem with you checking into the big Vegas hotel with chicken. In fact I encourage it. I just hope you didn’t buy it while wearing shorts in the dead of winter.