WHAT TO WEAR PART TWO

And the next night came and off we went with the spreadsheet, the picture of the shirts and the photograph of all the ties. On the back of the ping of shirts, it listed five stores and the brands they carried. I had spent the morning looking at the web sites.

Now, we all know, because we have had to wear clothes for years, that some brands fit better than others. Odd, isn't it, that one brand that was at an upscale store when I was growing up is now a box store brand? Another brand, sold only at sport stores, is now available at a farm store and that has happen in the last few years. I suppose it is all about getting one's product out.

Back to the caper. Tom knew the first thing to do is find the shirts. Collars are important. He stays away from button downs because he thinks it adds minutes to the ironing....or maybe it is because he has Raynard's Syndrome and he can't button the teeny buttons......or maybe both. Personally, button downs look like one is choking. I would not pick it for him.

Now, he trusts me, and that is scary. When he picked up a shirt, the first thing he did was put it under his chin. Even in store light, it was not his color. He has learned that colors that are muddy are just not suitable for him. One of the reasons he looks so healthy is because of the colors he wears. And, if you have a problem with believing this, stand in front of a mirror and put garments under YOUR chin and look at yourself. You will soon learn some make you look, as grandma used to say, "poorly".

He picked another light blue, perhaps as a replacement, as well as a forest green, a clean dark gray, a stripe, and agreed on the raspberry, which I had found the night before. Why didn't we buy it the night before? Well, we were clueless as to what he really needed and the night we went, well, buy $50 and get a $10 coupon. I am thinking Kohl's is one of the few stores that are making it in this recession because they are giving the customer a reason to come back with the coupon~of course, that means the longer you are there, the more you will buy.

The ties were next, I had already picked up the one to match the raspberry. He worked on the others, going first to a diagonal strip in blue. I showed him the picture so he could see just how many like that he already had. It is like me, when I shop for him, I always manage to come home with something with purple. Maybe because lil ol ladies love it, me included, of course.

We got down to the stripe shirt. It is white with a brown stripe and an aqua stripe. This is where the color blind comes in. He could not pick up the color and when he did, he did not see it for what it was. We twirled a lot of tie racks before we found a few that would work, although of the 50+ ties he has in his closet, there may have been something.

The spreadsheet was worth it and so where the pictures. It took us a half a hour to pick out five and five. He did not stray to the belts or underwear, he stayed on task, although we did not find a clear dark purple with a dress shirt collar in fitted nor did we find a yellow fitted.

Let me see, how does this work? I spent most of the morning getting ready and we spend 30 minutes in the store. Does that make the time I spent getting ready profitable? Yes. Why? Because he could shop with knowledge and do it a man's way, in a hurry. Oh, if he only took the time with buying clothes like he does looking for fishing lures.

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