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A commissioner in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, has about had it with people wearing their pajamas around town. Commissioner Michael Williams is pushing for an ordinance that would ban PJs in public, after he saw unexpected parts of someone wearing low-slung pajamas at the Walmart.
"Pajamas are designed to be worn in the bedroom at night," Mr. Williams tells the local Shreveport Times.
The people of Shreveport, some of them anyway, see it differently. One man tells the Times he's an American who pays his bills, so he doesn't see what the issue should be with PJs in public. Then there's this mom:
Tracy Carter, also of Shreveport, was out shopping Thursday with her 3-year-old son, Aaron — she in her Valentine's Day fuzzy pajama pants and Aaron in dinosaur pajamas."We all wear our pajamas out," Carter said. "I can get out of the bed and go to the store, and they're covering everything. I've got a 3-year-old, a 5-year-old and a 12-year-old to deal with."
The Caddo Parish sheriff says the biggest problem with a no-pajamas rule would be defining what exactly counts as pajamas.
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Hope they don't do that in Baltimore. Omar going shopping for smokes and cereal in his PJs was one of the many really funny parts of The Wire.
Love that episode...Love Omar...Love Honey Nut Cheerios..
The Emperor has no pajama's.
the sad thing is that he's a Democrat
The sad thing is that he's a moron. I wear my thick PJ's out often, but just to the grocery store or to Walmart. I promise no one sees anything. This is yet one more attempt to violate a persons freedom of expression. It makes me ashamed to say I live in Shreveport.
In Louisiana they're called "Conservadems"!
I would gladly support such a ban. I would also outlaw the current trend among young women: wearing tights in lieu of slacks or jeans.
Yes, well, we can't all be killjoys like you.
At what point should one's personal choices be superseded by someone else's? And who should be the annointed one to decide?
Ever been on a college campus in the past five years in the Midwest? Last fashion faux pas--knit Daisy Dukes with a winter coat and flip flops. Not that should be outlawed.
Does make life fun, though.
Pajamas were introduced to the West by the British some time in the 19th century, I think. In the countries of origin, PJs are intended to be daytime, out-and-about clothing. It's only in the transference did they become at-home clothing. So I guess you could say they are being restored to their proper function.
That said, I'd feel very silly going out in mine. So I won't. But what I do or don't do doesn't define the parameters of anyone else's behavior.
I'm sure there must be an indecent exposure law; he should expend effort enforcing that instead of attempting to classify the various types of sleepwear.
that makes perfect sense. sounds like he's just looking for attention to me...
You kidding? That makes about as much sense as classifying texting-while-driving a subset of "driving while distracted"- and not creating a new law explicitly for cell phone use. Oh, wait...
I see this all the time, here in the upper peninsula of Michigan. It just seems like laziness on the part of these people, that they can't even put on a pair of pants. Not to mention it looks STUPID. As for the mother of 3, I had 4 kids and I still managed to put on clothes before leaving the house.
I'm with you on this. Wandering around in your pajamas is one of those idiotic trends like wandering around with your pants halfway down your butt that just needs to stop. When I was a kid back in the (gulp) 70's, if you left the house in your PJs, got in the car and headed down to the grocery you'd probably be picked up by the police, not because you were breaking a specific law, but because you were obviously losing your mind.
I think wearing jammies to town is stupid but I also believe we can legislate common sense. I don't know if it is a right to be stupid but many practice it on a continuous basis!
I've seen this here in Eugene, too! When I was at the University of Oregon (Yeah! Rose Bowl Champs!) studying at the Business School, I would see younger girls (18-22) come to morning classes in their pajama pants and fuzzy slippers! You would think that they would at least take a few seconds to slip on a pair of sweat pants...
Seems to me that there ought be a maximum butt size for the public wearing of yoga pants. And why the heck do they make "Skinny Jeans" for guys with a waist over 30"?
Now that's just crazy. I live in Louisiana. I would think he had more to worry about than pajama patrol. In times like these where most towns are struggling to keep their police force staffed, does he really think tax payer money is best used to stop and ticket folks in their pajamas? There is no lack of REAL crime on the streets. I am 45 years old and I grew up seeing people run to the store in their pajamas, bathrobes, slippers AND curlers in their hair. I sometimes go around the house all day in those men's pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. If I need to run to the store right quick sometimes I just throw on my shoes and take off. Who cares? I care more about the ones who run around with the waistband of their pants down under their butt. I don't mind seeing pajamas, I do mind seeing butt crack. I think the Commissioner has too much time on his hands. He ought to come out from behind his desk and get on the street with the police, then see if he thinks they ought to waste time harassing people in their Pooh bear pants.
That's nuts. i wear pajamas in public and to work all the time. They don't usually look like pajamas, so nobody ever notices, but i wear them because i like them and they're comfortable.
Hello? I see people who wear their jeans like that all the time. So is he going to suggest an ordinance to ban jeans?
I would think there are far more important things to worry about these days than what people choose to wear...
The ordinance will be unenforceable because it violates the constitution. This is a waste of time and tax payers money.
Gee, Mike. Not like you; kind of shrill, man. It is Lousiana. Lots of odd stuff in Lousiana; don't amount to much. Never has. Will not now. Ask Laura. She is from next door and me, well, not that far away. C'est bon! C'est normale!
Exactly Mike, but on a side note wasn't TRMS posting this story an exciting experiment to see how judgmental us supposedly open-minded liberals can be? Sheesh.
Good one Mouzer
With all the people across this country out of work, in danger of becoming out of work or just having found a new job, THIS is the sort of garbage the politicians are concerned with?!?!?!?!?!?! OMFG doesn't even begin to cover it. And you can take my jammie pants when you rip them off my naked hiney!
I live in Louisiana (not the parish in question though) and its not the first time lawmakers here tried to enforce attire laws. A few years ago, one town tried to pass a law making guys walking around with their jeans sagging illegal. That didn't fly. This probably won't either. I'm all for people NOT exposing themselves in public, or wearing clearly unflattering clothing in public, but passing a law isn't going to magically give these people common sense. They either don't care (in the case of pajamas) or they think they look good (in the case of tights instead of pants/jeans). Enforce the exposure laws, don't make stupid new ones.
On a personal level, I would never go out of the house in pajamas. But then, I wouldn't dress a lot of the ways that I see people dress out in public. However, I wouldn't presume to tell someone else how to dress, though there are some things I just find offensive or obscene.
I don't want to see your genitalia, and I don't want to see or smell your bodily fluids/excretions.
I wouldn't be caught dead out in my pajamas, heck, I rarely leave the house in sweats.
But what kind of an idiot wants to make a law about this? Doesn't he have more important things to do? Surely there's a blind corner with a billboard he needs to be hiding behind.
Like I give a @!$%# if someone wants to wear PJs in public. Damn, people are judgemental.
I don't know whether to be embarrassed for or come to the
defense of the commissioner.
His statements are ludicrous, and they often are, and
everyone knows that he is simply "owning" the complaints of his
constituents who are watching the live broadcast to see if he is serving them.
He spends the 30 seconds to 5 minutes sharing their
concern. The commission allows the rant and then moves on.
Every once in a while he has things that the commission
should address, and they do.
I have often stared in wonder at this system. I don't
know enough to know what is wrong with it or how to fix it.
It's like the movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. It's
so bizarre that all I can do is stare at it, unsure whether to laugh or cry.
My daughter wears flannel jammie pants to the store. Maybe its a "young person" thing. I wouldn't do this, its not that hard to slip on a pair of jeans. I also don't go to the store without a bra on . Even if I have on a heavy T shirt and nobody can see anything, i won't go without a bra, even with a coat on. But I am 59 and my daughter is 35. so maybe that's why.
WHATEVAH. Silk palazzo pants look like jammies. Scrubs looks like jammies. Chef's pants look like jammies. Dresses sometimes look like nightgowns. And don't EVEN get me started on PajamaJeans.
Most of us wouldn't consider pajamas to be proper public attire anyway, but for those who do, what's the real harm? Mr. Williams fits one dictionary's definition of a bureaucrat to a T: "an official who works by fixed routine without exercising intelligent judgement." Tsk - it's just so hard to elect decent help these days.
Do yoga pants count as pajamas? Guilty.
Can't be sure without a photo, but if you'll kindly send one to Commissioner Michael Williams in Shreveport, he'll gladly pronounce judgement........
My wife and I argue this stuff all the time. I wear a lot of fleece clothing. They are comfortable and sometimes I sleep in them. She objects and says they must be one or the other. Either sleepware or not.
I think her real problem is that she doesn't know which drawer to put them in after doing the laundry. She, as I suspect many of the anti out doors PJ crowd are, is an every thing in its place type person.
Some people realy need to have very defined roles for everything. There was a recent article on Science Daily about them (I hope I do not offend the anti-PJ crowd):
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111221140627.htm
Yup, I'm thinking it's probably somewhat just human nature to want to know what drawer things go in. Good observation.
Thanks Rachel and Laura for picking up this story. Being a resident in Caddo Parish in Louisiana, it just gets more baffling everyday. After 50 years of trying, we saw the removal of the confederate flag in front of the courthouse (and thank you Rachel for taking the story to a national level, I am convinced you were instrumental in that process). Now they are attempting to legislate morality once again by outlawing pajamas being worn in public. According to the local story, several citizens were offended by being able to make out the male genitalia of a group of young African American men who were in a Walmart. If there are incidents of indecent exposure, then thats what they should be arrested for, not banning a particular type of clothing. Much baby with the bathwater in this state as it is. Where are they going to house these offenders? Our jails are already full to the max, 85 percent of Louisiana jails house African American men. We have a governor who is using an austerity agenda to cut social services to an already very poor population, theres talk of privatizing the prison system, and this Commissioner wants to legislate morality in the form of outlawing certain clothing choices?
Leave the pajama people alone! They're not hurting anyone. People in pajamas are relaxed people comfortable people. Why do people in pajamas offend so many? Maybe they secretly wish they could trade in their office heels for some fuzzy slippers. That's right! What if everybody did it!?
This is not small government. This is government up your butt. Sanctioned by proud people who would "never be seen in such a getup". Really, much better things to get riled about.
First they came for the Pajama People.....
I'm just grateful people cover their business with something. Anything!