Bathrobe

Ah, the bathrobe. An article of clothing adorned by everyone from playboys to mostly nude old men at least since the advent of the newspaper. It has served us well through the generations, and continues to do so to this day.

The bathrobe is a versatile article of clothing, and as such does not always need to be worn immediately after taking a bath. It can be worn after waking up, after a vigorous session of baking, or even as a normal article of clothing, though only if you are an escapee from a mental hospital, traveling the universe with a man named after a car, or both. Bathrobes are designed for comfort, and with all such products the more expensive ones tend to be quite a bit more comfortable. The cheaper end of the spectrum tend to wear like either starched paper for the thinner models, or like a coat made of cat scratching posts for the budget version of terrycloth.

The usage of a bathrobe, or smoking jacket (the only difference internet searches have brought up is that bathrobes are designed to be worn otherwise nude, but I'm sure one could do the same thing with a smoking jacket) is either to cover one's modesty, or simply as loungewear. Some bathrobes contain pockets, in case you feel that it is appropriate outdoors wear and decide to run your errands with nothing but a loosely tied robe to cover your shame.

Oh I'm just on my way to the store to pick up some donuts. Why yes, this is my bathrobe!

As it stands, the bathrobe is a functional, but essentially superfluous piece of the wardrobe. It's underrated in one's youth and seems to become almost essential the older someone gets for reasons unknown, but it never seems to serve any real purpose aside from opening the door to collect the mail without being outside in your skivvies. Allegedly they're also used at spas, but considering I'm too poor to have ever been to one of those, this may just be part of an elaborate fantasy constructed in my own head as I stretched awkwardly backwards in an attempt to give myself a backrub and dreamt of a day when things would be better than that, and some nubile young girl would instead be giving me a rubdown.

Picture removed for various violations.

On the other hand, the bathrobe does get some cool points for its appearance of the manliest of real sports, boxing. It's well known that boxers enter the ring punching and biting at random extremities whilst wearing a light robe that they throw off last second in a show of manliness and an attempt to shock you into thinking that they are larger than you had thought they were while they were hunched under the robe. This technique works equally well against children. Speaking of whom, the other cool factor involves this being the only article of clothing that let you pretend to be a Jedi a long time ago in a bedroom probably upstairs from the basement you live in now.

The bathrobe is a purely superfluous garment, but as with most things, superfluous tends to be equatable to luxury, and even the poorest of men realize that anything that allows you to sit around almost naked for most of the day is truly luxurious. It's difficult to look down on such a pimptastic product, but I'll be damned if I didn't try. The bathrobe gets a pantsless 7 /10.

One more for the road