Dress pants and khakis are way more comfortable to me than jeans

When I began my career, I worked at a newspaper. My summer office attire was a t-shirt and shorts. If I was feeling fancy, it was a pair of jeans and a polo.

When I transitioned to the 9-to-5 world in the mid-90s, the bar was raised to wearing a dress shirt and tie most days. For my first PR job at the Cleveland Clinic, it was a full suit every day, apparently on the off chance that as a hospital spokesperson, I might unexpectedly be asked to go on camera if a TV crew showed up and wanted a statement (which never actually happened).

Nowadays I have a formula when it comes to dressing for work: If the weather is warm, you will see me in a button-down shirt and a pair of solid-color pants (either dress pants or Dockers). If it is chilly, I wear the same thing with a sweater over top of the shirt.

I rarely stray from this approach. As a 53-year-old suburban dweller, I feel it is my right to dress in a boring, formulaic manner.

Here's what I don't get: Why do office workers treat "jeans days" as some sort of bonus? Over the years at the various organizations where I've worked, there has always been a desire for Friday jeans days. Or in the case of certain office competitions, one of the prizes has often been a jeans day.

I do not understand this. Maybe I'm buying the wrong jeans, but to me, jeans are not the ultimate in comfortwear. I would much rather wear my looser-fitting dress pants or those good old, dad-approved Dockers. They just feel better, especially when I'm wearing them for 9-10 hours at a stretch.

Office dress codes have evolved to the point that – at my place of employment, anyway – you can wear jeans just about every day of the week if you want. And I have done that before, but it only served as a reminder that jeans are not the sartorial delight they're cracked up to be.

Of course, your perspective on this may vary greatly. I'm someone who honestly never minded wearing a suit and tie every day (it greatly simplified the process of picking out clothes in the morning, I'll tell you that). So maybe my definition of "comfortable" clothing doesn't necessarily match that of the rest of the world.

There's also this: I'm a man. Maybe women value jeans more highly than the office-approved alternatives they're given.

Jeans were originally developed in the 19th century for mineworkers, weren't they? I'll you what, then...the next time the Materion Corporation asks me to descend 300 feet underground to search for gold, I'll throw on a pair of Levis.

In the meantime, my closet full of patterned button-downs and black, blue, gray and brown pants serves me just fine, thank you very much.

Clothes shopping and the middle-aged male

By the time you read this, I will have blown somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,000 on new clothes.

Give or take a few bucks. And that number includes three new suits, which are big-ticket items.

But really, two grand.

I'll have done this for three reasons:

1. I have the money. I spent a chunk of my unemployment tackling freelance writing assignments for the Cleveland Clinic, which is a "nonprofit" (heavy on the quotes) that has more money than it knows what to do with, so giving me a small piece of the pie certainly didn't break the bank for them.

2. I have a new job, which you already know. It's a business casual environment, but I wasn't all that stocked up on biz casual clothes, so it's off to Kohl's I go.

3. I'm a smaller person, which you also already know. I'm pushing 40 pounds on the old Weight Loss Meter. There's just not as much of me as there used to be to fill out the shirts and pants hanging in my closet, so I figure I'm go out and buy tinier versions of those same shirts and pants.

A couple of notes on point #3:

I file this under "Problems That Are Nice to Have," but for two months now, I've been walking around hiking up my pants. Even with my belt on the last notch, I've still been fighting Droopy Drawers Syndrome thanks to my weight loss. Again, nice problem to have, but more than a little annoying after a few weeks.

Also, it should be noted that I really will go out and buy smaller replicas of the stuff I already own.

This is because I'm a 43-year-old man. We have our tastes and we're pretty well set in our ways. Short of a midlife crisis that drives us to start shopping at Aeropostale, we see no need to change what works for us in the way of sartorial choice.

So when I take my big blowout shopping trip later today (about a week ago from your future perspective), I'll pretty much just find the section that contains Scott Clothes and start pulling stuff off the rack.

The stereotype is that men don't like shopping. I'll say that's half true for me. I don't relish the thought, but I don't hate it, either.

I will, however, do it in about half the time it would take, for instance, my wife to purchase the same items. I will be in and out of that store in a couple of hours, which is pretty good when you're blowing four figures on new duds.

Really, all I care about is coming away with:

• Some decent sandals to wear this summer
• Some work pants that aren't four inches too big around the waist
• Some new underwear

I am seriously excited about the underwear. Nothing excites Caucasian males in their middle years quite like the feel of fresh tighty-whiteys, let me tell you. Or maybe that's just me.

Either way, the Hanes people are going to be making a few bucks today, so good for them.

I can also guarantee that I will walk away with at least a few items of Dockers clothing. White guys love us some Dockers. My only rule there is no pleated pants. This isn't 1997 anymore. It's flat-front or nothing. That much I know.

Beyond that, though, I'm sticking with what I know works: Khaki pants, plaid button-downs, and the occasional dark-rinse jeans when I'm feeling hip. And tight-whiteys, of course. It all starts with the tighty-whiteys.