At some point in my life, I had a one realization that would change things forever forever: It makes absolutely no sense to put on “real” clothes if you’re driving somewhere but not getting out of the car—or, in some of my cases, just driving across town to visit your immediate family.
You might be starting to feel the warmth radiating off of this take, just as I feel the warmth from my robe, sweatpants and house shoes when I go somewhere and don’t get out of the car. Some of my coworkers felt the same way, like our video producer Adam Milt, who believes that you “have to put on real clothes when you leave the house.” He’s wrong.
But for this take, you can thank them. They were the coercion behind it, which might sound familiar if you’re a regular Jalopnik reader.
Anyway, back to business.
In many parts of the world, especially right now, it’s cold. Cold weather means a certain amount of layering inside and outside of the house, and, if you’re just going for a drive or not getting out of the car to run an errand, it is completely logical for those layers to be made out of the same articles of clothing.
Basically: It’s OK to drive around in a robe, or pajamas, if that’s your thing. If no one sees it, who cares?
There are plenty of compelling reasons for this. Since I work from home, I spend most of my winter days wearing a robe, sweatpants, thick socks, and house shoes. A sleeping cat is often draped over me.
The last thing anyone wants to do in the winter is peel all of that warm clothing off to change into something else, shivering all the while, only to return home and have to do the opposite all over again.
When I’m not planning to get out of a car, or I’m just driving over to see my mom, I skip that step. It’s made my life much better, but made my mom’s much more frustrating, particularly because she can’t bear the thought of me driving some of the $90,000 vehicles I review for work in a robe.
“You are not doing this again,” she says each time she opens the door and is greeted by the thick, pale-pink robe she bought me last year, realizing what a mistake it was. “I would be embarrassed. What if you got pulled over? What if someone saw you in that fine car, looking like that? What is wrong with you?”
She then goes on her own rant, talking about how she raised me better than this and how I should be ashamed. But the benefits of not changing out of my robe far outweigh the three-minute speeches I have to endure when it happens. She gets over it soon enough.
(I especially don’t get the “What if you get pulled over?” argument, because I doubt the robe would change my situation if I got nailed for speeding or something. The cops have seen worse that day, I am sure.)
You see, to change into “real” clothes just to not get out of the car is a terrible experience. It requires getting clothes out, getting cold in order to put them on, putting your house clothes away, and then having to do the reverse of that when you return home. It’s a waste of time, and leaves you with a feeling that you actually didn’t accomplish much on your car trip at all. You didn’t even get out, and here you are, changing your clothes once again.
In house clothes, nothing matters. Things are chill and comfortable, whether you’re off to visit mom or accompanying your significant other on a drive-thru run. You’re zooming down the road, in your robe, without a care what anyone thinks. Life is one big, warm fireplace in the middle of winter, and you’re sitting in front of it—even if your mom is standing behind you, yelling about the robe.
Now’s the part where I get to the “Free your mind, man” segment of this blog, but you knew that already. Free your mind, friends, and free yourself from the need to put on real clothes when there’s really no need at all.