clothes reading

This is another post in the spirit of conveying something about grad student life to those of you who are for the most part unacquainted with our kind.

Saturday night, I decided to invite a few friends over to play Mario Kart, two of whom brought their 6 month old along (baby James, as I like to call him). Since my guests arrived all at once, we of course started things off by cooing, smiling, and generally giving all our attention to the amazing baby James.

Okay, so far so good, right? Nothing out of the ordinary here.

But then, someone points out that baby James is wearing a rainbow striped onesy with a picture of a giraffe driving, of all things, a backhoe. After quickly noting its odd cuteness, we slid naturally into a discussion of what crossed the designer's mind when he or she chose to combine these two specific objects.

Here's a quick selection of answers:

"maybe since the animal is exotic, they thought the vehicle ought to be as well"

"I'd like to attribute the backhoe to a desire to toughen up the child, but the rainbow background rules out that possibility"

"hmmm... a giraffe and a backhoe... an animal and a vehicle... are they making a point about nature and technology?"

In literary studies, this is what we like to call "close reading." Things don't, as the great Young MC once said, just make us go hmmmmm. Instead, they make us totally geek out. All the while baby James mainly thinks that we're mesmerized by his cute little baby belly.

So there you have it, a pretty typical example of what us grad students (as well as their spouses and partners - unless they're faking) consider to be a good time. For another example, I invite you to go back to the title to be either amused or slowly tortured by my attempt at a pun.