“Nice tie.”

I wear some fairly radical ties to work.
Basically what happened was my wife went to TJ Maxx one day where there was a sale on Tommy Hilfiger ties. These things were cheap.
Like “I can’t buy a Venti Espresso at Starbuck’s but I can buy five of these ties,” cheap.
I usually wear them with a solid color button-down collar Polo shirt and they make even me look good for very little money.
The price tag on several of these ties ranged from $50 to $95.
The day I pay that kind of money for a tie is the same day I go to the big white house on the hill wearing a Hannibal Lechter muzzle.

These ties are various patterns and colors that teeter on the brink of outrageous.
They’re definitely not apparel for the corporate world but for retail, hell, it’s a tie.

Last Friday afternoon, our UPS driver, TJ, forgot to take a package. (stay with me, it will all make sense soon)
The boss was out at the time but we knew if this package was still sitting here when he returned we’d most surely get our asses reamed.
I bolted out of the store in the direction TJ was headed.
He couldn’t have gotten very far.
I finally found his truck a short distance down the street but there was no sign of TJ.
I began walking back towards the store when I spotted him standing in a doorway talking to one of his other customers.

I raised my hand and yelled, “TJ!”

He saw me and waved back.
At the time there was a disheveled panhandling street guy walking past TJ and he must have thought I was yelling to him.
He also began waving me over.
I’m thinking he wants change or something (actually, panhandlers now ask for a dollar, must be inflation).
He’s staring at me intently like I’m some complicated math problem he’s yet to solve.
I’m about to just walk by him when looks at me and says, “Hey, nice tie.”

Although I’m not, by any stretch, a slave to fashion I do appreciate a compliment from time to time.
From a woman, I’ll take one anytime and from a well dressed man, occasionally. But one from a street guy wearing clothing that closely resembled a badly soiled paper bag?

How am I supposed to take that? I mean, really.

I am still scratching my head, laughing but…

And TJ is now telling me on a regular basis, “Hey, babe, nice tie.”