What Really Grinds My Gears

As you read these words, I need you to picture me delivering them in my best Peter Griffin impersonation. Imagine me, pinching the bridge of my nose with my fingers, and letting out that long, exhausted sigh.

You know what really grinds my gears? The state of men’s fashion in 2026. Most of you will probably think, “Who is he to talk about fashion? All he wears is white, grey, and khaki.” Lock me up for having an opinion then why don’t you.

However, when I sit and daydream about the day I get to go clothes shopping and I picture which clothes I’m going to purchase so that I can somewhat fit into society again, I sure as heck don’t see myself squeezing into a pair of tapered pants that make the lower half of my body look like an upside down traffic cone. And I certainly don’t foresee myself being caught dead in public as the fat guy wearing daisy dukes. Not happening.

Let me first address the whole tapered pants issue. I’m fully aware that I’ve been out of society for a while, and while I was expecting the fashion trends to be different, I’m completely baffled that we went back generations in time to where we now are stuck in a trend that used to seem ludicrous to us. What genius was able to somehow convince all of the men in the world that wearing pants so tight it cuts off the blood flow to your ankles was a good idea? If you need to perform a reverse trust fall into a pushup position when you drop your keys on the sidewalk in order to pick them up, “bro,” your pants are too tight.

And now to the most critical part of my rant, this issue of men wearing short shorts. If you want to wear a pair of shorts that rest above your knees and you don’t want your legs to get all twisted up when you run, by all means go right ahead. However, if I’m walking past the bench press station in the weightroom, because that’s where beefcakes like us hang out, and you yell at me for a “spot,” I don’t want to end up spitting out my water because I “spotted” what appears to be some gum stuck to the side of your leg because your shorts are so short.

The Fab Five from Michigan went through cultural warfare in the 90s by wearing their basketball shorts past their knees. They went through a lot just to give our legs some extra breathing room, but today, all that hard work is being thrown away.

Men, as we roll into the last half of the 2020s and into 2030, let’s create a new fashion trend. Leave the tight jeans to the guys who ride bulls, and leave your sister’s volleyball shorts at home. Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to go find a good hiding spot away from the volleyball team and bull riders.