Imagine this scenario if you will. It’s your second year of law school, and your school is willing to pay your way across the country so you can attend the 2007 State of the Net Conference in Washington, DC. You’ve done the cross-country trip many times before. In fact, you even used to live in DC. You figure the planning is no big deal. You’re a busy law student, and time is of the essence.

Now imagine that because you’re concerned about missing too many classes, you decide it would be clever to take a red-eye into BWI, attend the conference the day you arrive, crash at the hotel, and depart for California the next morning. Total elapsed time: 48 hours. Of course, you know that you never get any sleep on planes, but you’ve gone without sleep for long stretches with only minimal dain bramage. Why not go for it? You’re young and perhaps just stupid enough to pull it off.

Push yourself further into this imaginary little scenario, and see yourself bleary-eyed and a mite chilly, walking with a student colleague through the blustery cold Baltimore morning toward the train station. You used to live in the cold, so you neglected to bring any legitimate cold weather clothing, figuring your tough hide and disdain for discomfort will get you through whatever exposure you might encounter. Of course, you didn’t get any sleep on the plane, it’s not even 8 am, and you’re hoping the train arrives on time.

Imagine further that you make it through the Time of Coldness, and the nice crowded, warm train arrives. You would be comfortable enough to grab a nip of sleep as the train clicks along toward DC, but you’ve attained that delicious state of intoxication akin to what a small child must feel immediately before “melt down” occurs. You’re tired and wound up at the same time. So you soldier on, chatting with your travelling partner and hoping that you’ll make it to the conference before the keynote address starts.

Now turn the hands of the imaginary clock further into the future and you’ve arrived at the hotel where the conference takes place. You’re tired and a bit disoriented, but you see that the keynote hasn’t started just yet. You very cleverly wore comfortable jeans and tennis shoes for the flight, and even more cleverly brought your slacks and blazer in a carry on bag. Triumphantly, you take your bag into the restroom to pull a Peter Parker.

Unfortunately there isn’t much room in the toilet stall. You keep setting off the motion sensors next to the toilet, so every 30 seconds it flushes, alerting other restroomgoers that someone is in the stall and doing something untoward. How would Spidey deal with this?

Now to make matters worse, you discover to your utter horror that somehow you have managed to avoid placing that spiffy royal blue button down shirt in your bag. In fact, you have no shirt with you, other than the dark grey tshirt you’d planned to use as an undershirt. Now you’re wondering what MacGuyver would do. Craft an elegant Egyptian cotton fine-point shirt from the contents of the hand towel basket, perhaps?

Determining that there really is no way out of this scenario other than to embrace improvisation, you gamely put on the grey shirt and put the blazer on over it. For a moment you consider going completely Don Johnson and leaving your face unshaven, but the trauma of having to fake your way without the trusty blue shirt is too much for you, and you haul out the electric razor.

After noisily grinding away at your whiskers, you manage to beat them into submission. The carry on bag, that reminder of your incomplete packing job, looks out of place here. Almost every single male in the entire hotel is wearing at the very least a button down shirt, so you’re already feeling somewhat unmanned. The bright red and blue Converse bag that served as your carry on (because you were, you know, too busy to find the more refined travel bag that languishes somewhere in the storage closet) is mocking you fiercely now.

Resigned to your fate as The Blazer & Tshirt Guy With The Goofy Bag, you hide your shame and scuttle out of the restroom, and up the stairs to the front desk, so you can drop the precious plastic bag into the hands of a bellman (who promises to take good care of it for you). Realizing that the keynote speech has likely already started, you hustle to the badge table, grab your bag of goodies, and walk into the already full room, where the keynote is already in progress.

I don’t really need to spell out the rest of this imaginary scenario, but let’s just say our hero learns several lessons along the way:

  • The ROTC instructors were right about attention to detail. It makes a difference.
  • Take the extra day. Travel during the waking hours like a normal person. If you were meant to fly at night, you’d have sonar in your noggin and fur on your wings.
  • If it’s red and blue, just say no.
  • Lose the tie, but never lose your shirt.
  • Always bring a trenchcoat to DC in the winter. It covers all manner of foolish sartorial mistakes.