The "Popped Collar" Experiment

When traveling, it's important to learn the customs of the locals and understand them by assimilating into their culture, as much as is comfortably possible.

The "Popped Collar" experiment is really less an experiment than it is a chance for me to explore a section of humanity that I was too afraid to explore. In my country, the popped collar distinguishes one as being especially egregious and outspoken in the most interesting ways. Quite honestly, wearing the popped collar is more of a lifestyle than it is a fashion statement. It is for this reason that I've never had the opportunity to try the popped collar; I am simply not prepared to live the lifestyle.

In England and the parts of Europe that I visited, I found that the popped collar was worn by more than a few people. Men, women, children... anyone capable of wearing a collar is comfortable wearing it popped up. I saw this as the perfect opportunity to explore the world of the popped collar, without fully committing to it, and the results were astounding.

First, let's take a look at the collar that I used for this experiment:
[caption id="attachment_547" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Collar"][/caption]

My foray into the world of the popped collar began the instant that the collar was turned up. Be honest, have you ever seen a better picture of me? I look stunning.

But that was just the beginning, as soon as I stepped outside, there was no degree of uncertainty that the sun was shining brighter. I was fortunate that I was wearing my visor, so as to prevent being blinded.

My first stop was to the newsstand where I've been buying day old newspapers all week. I was stopped in my tracks as I was greeted by the same friendly used news merchant that I'd seen for the last few days. I had become accustomed to his barely intelligible British accent, and when he greeted me today, he had the voice of an angel. Seeing the confusion on my face, he asked: "My dear sir, you seem so confounded, are you alright? I have your day old newspaper right here." After what seemed like an eternity, I managed to formulate a sentence and as I began to speak, I'd found that my own voice had become a mixture of the voices of Sean Connery and George Clooney.

Not ten minutes into this experiment, and I'd been so shocked by the results that I nearly lost my scientific focus. Once I acquired my old newspaper, I quickly found a cafe, exchanged glorious pleasantries with the barrister, and sat down with my coffee to try and get my head around the magic that was happening.

I made some calculations using yesterday's classifieds as a scratch sheet, and I surmised that the upturned collar sufficiently changed the acoustic dynamics around me in such a way as to make every sound a gift from heaven. Unfortunately, the formula is too complex to document here. After regaining my of state unbiased scientific observation, I continued the experiment by walking around the neighborhood. I was so focused on listening to the sounds around me, that I didn't notice that people were looking at me... no, they were staring at me, as I passed by.

At first, I began to fear that my collar was not popped correctly or had become un-popped, but the sounds were still so sublime that I knew that it was working as designed. I next considered my man beard. Having not shaved in 41 days has rendered me with a magnificent man beard, so I thought that was surely the cause. To test this, I subtly lowered the collar, and was nearly knocked over by the abrupt change of birds singing and angelic voices to cars honking and British accents. I braved these assaults and walked back the way that I'd come, and along the way, I observed that no one was looking at me. It had to be the collar.

In a flash, I turned my collar back up and made another reversal in direction. Once again, people were staring at me. As I passed a lovely young English woman with perfectly straight teeth, I made eye contact with her, and she said in her angelic voice, "Didn't you just walk this direction?", to which I replied in my Sean Cloonery voice, "Yes, I had to come back to see you again."

I honestly was not thinking those words, but somehow, the magic of the popped collar had done the work for me, and the next thing I knew, I had her phone number, email address, physical address, and PIN number. "What an amazing power.", I thought to myself. This happened more than a few, but not as many as several, times before I managed to find a place where I could sit down and use my scientific skills to figure out what happened.

Given that the responses all seemed to be based on visual stimulus, I pulled out my pocket spectrometer and began to analyze the area around the collar. As I mentioned earlier in this post, the sun definitely shone brighter and the upturned collar acted as a light collector, not unlike a small black hole of awesomeness. The resulting concentration of light caused the area around my neck to turn into a small equatorial island, where the sun shines bright enough to immediately give a deep, natural tan.

It's no wonder that so many people turn up their collars, the world is simply a better place. The rest of the experiment was a delight on every one of my senses.

At the end of the experiment, I came away with a better understanding of the world of the popped collar. As I mentioned previously, this isn't a lifestyle that I'm prepared to live, though, so, I will return to my world where the collar stays down. When I see those who do live the lifestyle enjoying every moment without a care in the world, I'll know that the reason that they seem so oblivious to the world around them is because they are in the world of the popped collar.