Sitting in a circle, one by one, each of my family members describes an outrageous and/or ridiculous outfit they wore as a teenager. At first, it's a civil discussion, but it's only a matter of minutes before it degenerates into a cackling hilarity of halter tops and hip huggers, neon shirts and homemade patches. Stories of "You're not going to leave the house like that!" Stories of insane combinations and social faux pas. Me, I'm silently listening. Trying to remember something comparable. And honestly, I can't.

"I think I dress the same now as I did back then," I say, ruining everyone's fun.

Don't get me wrong, there were fads and I followed them. I slipped on some acid wash in my day. I wore a Hypercolor shirt now and then. And though the cuts and fits have changed to match the times, the uniform is still basically the same: jeans, t-shirts, hoodies.

I should note here that the Chuckies in the photo above are an adult addition to my ensemble. As a kid or especially an adolescent growing up in West Duluth, wearing Converse All-Stars would have been social suicide. The only kids who wore Chuckies were the skater punks, who were even lower on the social scale than the dirtbags sucking down Marlboro 100s in back of the school. Ninety-nine percent of the student body wore name-brand athletic shoes: Nike, Adidas, Asics. Hell, even Reeboks ... even L.A. Gear was better than Converse. You could even wear Vans or Airwalks if you wanted to, which I did from time to time. Mostly, I wore Asics Tigers -- the apex of 1980s athletic footwear. But I didn't necessarily want to wear these shoes. They were a social necessity, much like the New Balance shoes or steel-toed boots I wear nowadays are a physical necessity required by my job.

Back in elementary school, however, I, like pretty much every boy I knew, wore Trax, the cheap Adidas knockoff available at your local JC Penney. I also wore the same blues jeans as almost all of my peers: the tough, indestructable Wranglers sold at Kmart before the invention of prewashed jeans. We later called these "stiffies" and joked that when our moms brought them home from the store, they leaned them up against the wall. While from the waist down I looked like everyone else, from the waist up I exclusively wore button-up (or more accurately, snap-up) cowboy shirts. I always wore an undershirt and I always wore colored socks that matched my cowboy shirt. I'd call myself a nerd, but well, this hasn't changed much either. In high school and college, the cowboy shirts changed into flannel shirts, and the undershirts became thermal undershirts, but it didn't take long to switch back shortly after Kurt Cobain died.

I remember my first hoodie, which was quaintly called a "hooded sweatshirt" back then. I remember seeing a commercial for some kind of gourmet TV dinner, where a beautiful woman in an evening gown answers the door to find some dork in a hoodie just like mine. "Aren't we eating out?!" she shrieked. "I thought we were eating in," he shrugged. "We are now," she said, rolling her eyes and dragging him inside by the hood-strings. Then the scene cut to them eating whatever TV dinner it was, savoring each delicious flash-frozen bite. "Hmm," I thought, completely misinterpreting the point, "maybe I can get hot girls, too." That sort of thing would come many, many years later, much to the dismay of my 10-year-old self.

In my late 20s, I decided to experiment for awhile with expensive, fashionable dress. I funneled 100% of my income as an "independent contractor" (quote does not indicate anything illegal) into clothes. I think I went an entire year without wearing jeans or sneakers. I wore $150 shirts. I wore $250 shoes. I traveled to large cities and returned with bags of clothes. It was a really fun experiment, but I don't think it was me.

After I told my family that I've always dressed the same way, I turned and looked at my dad, a 77-year-old man who still rides his bike every day, even in the winter. He wore jeans and a hoodie.

Shit, I thought. I'm going to dress like this forever.