I stood on the sales floor, trying desperately to blend into the wall of jeans I was standing in front of. Maybe if no one notices me, I will still get paid ten dollars an hour. This daydream seemed unlikely as my fellow sales associate asked me to help a customer find pants. I was shocked and horrified because, for one thing, it took me a solid 18 years to figure out my own pants size, let alone help someone else. And, more importantly, it’s my first day here and I literally don’t even know where the bathroom is. I stuttered as my coworker handed me a measuring tape (what is this? the “Land Before Time?”) and I meekly followed the customer to the pants section. I thought about bolting for the door and assuming a new identity, but ultimately I gave in, because I’m a big girl with my first retail job. To be honest, I trench-coated the entire thing.
Trench-coating (n): the act of feeling as if you are two kids inside a trench coat, pretending to be an adult. At any moment, whether by wind or by personal child-like grace, that trench coat is going to rip open and two children are going to come tumbling out, across the floor, obviously unequipped to live a day-to-day adult life, let alone help another adult find reasonably priced pants.
As a TV trope, this concept is known as the “totem pole trench.” In “Madagascar,” the two chimpanzees attempt to buy a train ticket in this disguise. The totem pole trench is a running gag in “The Little Rascals.” In the Netflix original series “Bojack Horseman,” Vincent Adultman is just a regular guy who also happens to be two kids in a trench coat. He frequently answers questions with one-word “adult” answers:
“What do you like, Vincent?” Princess Carolyn asks.
“Business,” he answers after a couple of “ums.”
In this situation, Vincent is both literally trench-coating and intellectually trench-coating his interactions with Princess Carolyn by giving vague answers about the stock market and taking his “car to the place.” Vincent says exactly what he needs to just to get by, to “pass” as a normal adult. The characters live their lives alongside Vincent without exposing him for what he truly is. We find humor in Vincent’s exchanges even though he is so clearly out of his comfort zone.
In reality, Vincent represents a large part of who we are as people. While stuck in the elevator or trapped at a holiday party, the topic of banking will inevitably come up. I usually pick the first couple of words I know about the stock market and fumble my way through a conversation about Wall Street, or maybe French painting or maybe even grilling, if appropriate. Usually, by the end of the conversation, I have deduced some piece of general knowledge based on the subject. I leave a little bit better and my conversational partner leaves none the wiser.
Life is a series of challenges. Some challenges seem harder, like competing on American Ninja Warrior or taking a geometry test (both are nightmares of mine). Some seem easier, like finishing a tub of ice cream or complimenting someone for something simple. Either way, it varies based on person and time and mood lighting. 90 percent of the time, nobody really has a clue what they are doing and if they do, there is always room to make mistakes.
If every time you found a problem you couldn’t solve, you quit, you probably wouldn’t have made it out of the womb. Man would not have made it to the moon and “Julie and Julia” would have not made it to the movie theaters. Trench-coating makes us better. You smile through whatever you need to in order to make it to the other side, usually coming out largely unscathed and maybe a little bit better as a person. This is not to say that you should trench-coat all the time — there is an importance in admitting ignorance. There are day-to-day occurrences, however, where you just have to get through. In trench-coating, I learned that men’s pants are waist-by-length and if you try on enough jeans, one pair is bound to work out. I also learned that customers can be kind and hilarious and are also probably trench-coating because they don’t understand pants sizes either.
Next time you’re nervous, just picture everyone around you as two kids in a trench coat. Know that they are probably a little smug because they got to be the top kid, but also that they are just as scared as you. Show compassion, smile, talk about the stock market, cash crops, finance boom: live.
