The Futility Of Buying School Uniform

Yesterday was a rainy Saturday for me, and I somehow found myself with my father and his girlfriend in the nearest city, glaring at a beautiful dark haired eleven foot high model, wanting to go home and write fictional stories about people who didn’t have to go shopping for things they didn’t want.

As it was, I couldn’t go home and surround myself with fiction because I had to buy new trousers for me to wear to school. Correction- my father had to buy new trousers for me to wear to school. My own plain black full length trousers had finally given up, after being worn almost every day for five months, left on my bedroom floor and trampled over, the ankles getting dragged through every puddle my feet met and going through the general pointless and petty abuse I direct at most school-related objects I own.

So here we were in a packed city, the sky pouring rain on our heads, bravely trying each clothes-related shop until we managed to find a pair of manufactured, lycra-containing, uniform, plain black trousers for my father to spend money he really didn’t want to on them, and for me to unwillingly wear them five days a week, for the next four or five months.

I bet she doesn’t have to do this stuff, I thought as I glared at the huge photo of the model on the wall. She seemed to be claiming to have the “New Look,” and it appeared to consist of enough make up for ten footballer’s wives, enough jewelery to sink the titanic for a second time, and a pout to rival that of Keira Knightley’s.

Of course, I might be a little bitter, because she was being universally celebrated for looking wonderful, while I was stood dripping rainwater all over the laminated floor and trying to find my size among a sea of size eights.

However, I believe our collective efforts were not in vain, because it has inspired me to write this article and it is yet another thing which made me think about the society I am living in. The situation is quite bizarre when you consider it- We were in a place which we did not want to be in, spending money we perhaps couldn’t really afford to, on an item of clothing I didn’t want to own or wear - and for what?

To comply with some rules. Rules created and enforced by people who didn’t have to obey them. Rules I myself do not agree with, yet have to obey or I’ll be punished by “Isolation.” - Where one has to sit alone in a room for the day, performing written work. The punishment of isolation continues until you attend school in proper uniform. It almost suggests that any clothes other than the ones we have been granted the permission to wear might harm the other pupils or distract them.

If every student who doesn’t agree with the rule were to rise against it, about three quarters of the school would come into the building wearing unauthorized clothes or items of jewelery. Could we all pay the price through isolation? Or might those rule-makers have to start listening to the rule breakers instead of just punishing and patronizing them?

I don’t have the answers to these questions. I doubt that anybody does. For now, I’ll have to keep wearing these regulation trousers which are so approved of and so very mass produced. One lone voice isn’t likely to change any rules - though one louder combined voice would. Whether people will manage to find their contribution to that louder voice is unknown just now. Boxes may be flown out of - time will tell.