Pyjamacracy
After giving this matter much thought, I have decided that pyjamas should be the official dress code of the US government, even after quarantine ends. Picture this: President Biden coming into work clad in fuzzy footie pyjamas. The Attorney General appearing on TV in an oversized T-shirt. Pencil skirts will cease to exist, replaced by fleece-lined sweatpants.
Perhaps the notion of the most powerful people in the country having meetings in bathrobes feels farcical to you. To me, it makes perfect sense. I spent 3 years of high school wearing suits on the weekends and attending Model UN conferences, and I can confirm that formal attire is, frankly speaking, horrifically uncomfortable. For one thing, energetically discussing national policy while wearing a blazer and button-down very quickly leads to a great deal of sweating. After 30 minutes, the meeting room inevitably smells like an Olympic athlete’s used sock, a situation which is not very conducive to bipartisan lawmaking. Replace suits with loose, cool pyjamas, and this problem would be nonexistent. Plus, this way, if things get too heated, nobody will be able to strangle each other with their ties (a leading cause of injury in the US Senate).
Perhaps I am biased, because shortly after graduating I went to college for computer science, a major notorious for its complete and utter lack of dress sense. In this regard I am a very stereotypical software engineer. My rules for pants are as follows: (1) they must have elastic waists, because buttons trigger my fight or flight instinct, and (2) the leg-holes must each be wide enough to fit a smallish crocodile in addition to my legs. Not that I am storing crocodiles in my clothing. Not that you would know if I were, that’s how wide I prefer my pants legs.
Usually I pair these with a big T-shirt. Not the trendy oversized kind, more of a “the only free shirts left at the hackathon were 3 sizes larger than my frame” sort of garment. In the balmy Californian fall I add an equally roomy hoodie, often leading passers-by to mistake me for a pile of slightly ratty clothing with a face.
In other words, I choose outfits which are as close to pyjamas as possible while still being acceptable to wear in public. I am also much more productive, on an annual basis, than most US government officials. By the logic laid out earlier, I have reason to believe these two facts are correlated. If you remain unconvinced, let’s just try it out in the legislative branch for a year. No more armpit sweat dripping on important bills, no more disagreements settled by duelling with cuff-links. We’ll have universal healthcare and an unbiased criminal justice system within 12 months. Institute the all-pyjama policy today, and I guarantee we’ll see immediate change.
––Aditi Ramaswamy
