Dear Kid,

You may have heard it said that there is nothing new under the sun.

This is of course not true, and there is now a New Horror Among Us: the outfits the US of A athletes will wear during the opening ceremonies of the Sochi Olympic games.

To be fair, it can’t be easy designing something for every body type represented by the team. Think great big hockey dudes and tiny little figure skater dudettes. But that is no reason to resort to the fashion statement we call Awful (as in full of awf).

Not only are the sweaters just hideous (and by hideous I mean hideous) the bottoms are sweatpants. Not just sweatpants. White sweatpants.

Do you know who looks good in white sweatpants? No one. I have researched the issue thoroughly and there is no one on the planet for whom white sweatpants are a good fashion choice.

Can you wear white sweats around the house? If it makes you happy, sure. Can you wear them to the gym? Why not. Should you wear them to go grocery shopping? If you must. But on an international stage where nations are showing off their finest? Um, no. No. Not now, not ever.

To make it even better (and by “better” I mean “much worse”) the publicity shot that was used to introduce us to this visual catastrophe had a flag in it. The US flag. With 48 stars. (Careful, don’t let your jaw hit the floor as you absorb the full impact of that particular faux pas.)

Embarrassing. That’s what it is. And expensive. The sweaters are upwards of $500 each and if you think that’s a good deal because it is commemorative or something you’re just wrong. (This is the point at which you should be very happy I gave you a pair of “GO” “USA” mittens and not one of these sweaters.)

On the plus side, I’m reasonably sure no athlete’s competitive performance has ever been impacted by their outfit in the opening ceremonies, so we’ve go that in our favor. And since they only have to wear these puppies at the opening ceremonies we have the whole rest of the Olympics to allow our retinas to recover.

Go. USA.

Love, Mom

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