Kid, nobody wants to see your butt over pancakes

I was vacationing up north a few weeks back. For me, no vacation is complete without breakfast in at least one mom-n-pop diner. The rules are these: it can’t be a chain, they must offer chicken fried steak, and their biscuits and gravy must come with the correct biscuit/gravy ratio (50/50).

My vacations are not designed to promote good health or abs of steel.

Guys my age don’t stress too much over things like flat bellies, clean-shaven cheeks or the latest fashions, not when we’re on vacation anyway. This is evinced in the typical “up north” summertime vogue — baggy Hawaiian shirts and baggier shorts.

But apparently some of the under-20 locals do try to keep in step with what the cool kids are wearing. Or so the sign in the diner’s window would have me believe.

“If you can’t pull your pants up, don’t come in here!” the sign warns. “Nobody wants to eat pancakes while looking at your butt.”

Now, I’m familiar with the whole hip-hop-baggy pants-hanging-down-below-your-butt-underwear-hanging-out look. I can’t believe it’s still considered cool by some, since it looks utterly moronic and these days is seen mostly on white kids trying to emulate their cooler black counterparts.

Nothing’s dorkier than a 15-year-old honky from a lilly-white resort town trying to look like he’s getting down with his homies in the ‘hood. But you can’t tell kids that. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do and no amount of restaurant window signage is going to change that.

If anything, griping about their ridiculous fashion choices only reinforces their belief that they are inherently cool. Teen logic says that if old people like me hate something, it must be awesome.

So, my fellow geezers and restaurant owners, we need to change our strategy. If we’re going to spare our eyes the horror of skinny, teen-boy BVDs poking over the descended waistbands of baggy jeans, we need to fight fire with fire.

To fight the enemy, we must become the enemy. Trust me on this one. If every pot-bellied, balding, ear hair-infested codger in America starts wearing his pants low with his wrinkly rear-end hanging out, the teenagers will immediately cease and desist.

So go ahead, gramps! Turn that baseball cap around backwards, put on a pair of Nikes but don’t lace ‘em up, load up on the bling! If we all do this, by this time next month every teen boy in the country will be dressing like Walter and Theodore from “Leave it to Beaver.”

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273