I’m no stranger to the 60+ hour work week.  The days, when finally done, you swear lasted around 36 hours.  Workdays start to melt together, the wallet fills with money, and the fatigue grows along with accomplishment.  

The weekend is you savior, and Monday is your satan.  Most Mondays you arrive more tired than when you left on Friday because there is no chance of avoiding the fruits of you labor over the weekend.  The cycle continues as your wardrobe turns more worn, more tired, dirtier.  The smell of a long day starts to linger on you.  Oh, that sweet smell of a hard day’s work.

If follows you to the bar after work, it follows you to your solo dinner right before resting for the next day.  You stop noticing it; it becomes part of you.  It’s the badge of honor from the barn to the grain elevators.  It’s the smell that separates you from the people not worth a damn.

Never underestimate a little sweat.  

A problem with flannel shirts these days.  

It seems that a dichotomy has arose within the world of flannel shirts.  It has caused a personal struggle for us, and we wish to weigh in on the progression.

When I was first handed down my first flannel shirt from my father, it fit me perfectly.  I’m a fairly thin man, I try to stay in shape, I work hard, and this was a shirt that accommodated my lifestyle.  Nowadays, the sleeves of a flannel could harbor a walrus arm.  Big and Tall has turned into obese.  You can paraglide with the amount of unnecessary fabric that they give you.  Let’s turn back the clock and take a look at the 70s.  

Manual labor and rock and roll.  That’s pretty much all you need as a recap.  Moving on. 

Flannel is not synonymous with laziness (Ignore the image of flannel pajama pants if that is what’s in your head.  If that’s the first thing you thought of, you need a lot of work.  Please return to the first post on this blog and start over, you weren’t paying attention)

A flannel means your body is hardened and tired with years of work.   Not swollen and soft with years of neglect.  The flannel shirt needs to size up to the working man.  Baggy arms and wide bodies only increase the chance of getting caught in machinery, torn in the outdoors, or women thinking there is too much of you to love.

The sad part is that certain producer are making shirts that actually fit.  These are typically priced above $30, made by some designer who hasn’t worked a day in his life and makes shirts for people who don’t know what a day of work means.  We have spoke in depth on these fashionable flannels in previous posts.

I hate to be devil’s advocate, but what happened?