Defying all stereotypes of relatively affluent people co-opting working-class attire to look like affluent people who don’t want to seem too affluent but still obviously kind of are, one Seattle man wearing Carhartt overalls today said that actually he has done a single day of manual labor in his entire life.
“You don’t know me – I once stood next to someone operating a saw at a Habitat for Humanity event I did in high school once so I could throw that on my college application list of extracurricular volunteer activities,” said Capitol Hill resident Oliver Whitman. “I lifted dozens – dozens! – of pieces of wood planks from one part of a yard to another that day. Sure, it was years before I started wearing Carhartt overalls, but it totally counts. A splinter in my finger made an owie I made my mother kiss when I got home and everything.”
When asked if he might ever do manual labor again in his $150 Carhartt overalls, Whitman’s eyes got big.
“Uh, these were pretty pricey – no,” Whitman said. “Could you imagine being the kind of person who would blow that much money on these kinds of overalls just to get them dirty while using them as were intended to work hard on a boat, farm or any other gritty blue-collar work? I can’t!”
Whitman says that may change sometime very soon, though, now that he and a friend in Ballard agree they really “like the idea of woodworking.”
