Dressing the ‘right’ way is no slam dunk for him
Based on mathematical calculations, the odds of predicting every game in this year’s March Madness basketball tournament are 9 quintillion to one.
Based on three decades of marriage, that’s still better than the odds of me picking out the “right” clothes to wear to a social event.
The problem, my wife insists, is that my wardrobe needs updating and there’s nothing in my closet to wear. I, on the other hand, think I have so much nothing to wear that I can’t keep track of it all.
Most of what’s in my closet has been put there by her. Every few weeks she comes home with new clothes she thinks I might love. I seldom love them, but I keep them anyway, because I don’t want to hurt her feelings.
The only way to tell I picked out the right ones to wear is if, when wife sees me with them on, she says, “cute.” If she shakes her head and rolls her eyes, it’s back to the closet for me. So far the shakes and rolls outnumber the “cutes” by a huge margin.
Recently, for instance, we were invited to a neighborhood get-together.
“The dress code is casual,” she informs me. I have no idea how she knows that; perhaps wives have some sort of telepathic network about these things.
“Is it casual or is it casual chic?” I ask. It worries me that I know there’s a difference, although I don’t know what the difference is.
“You can wear dressy jeans,” she says. I also don’t know what the difference is between dressy jeans and regular jeans. Maybe it’s the size of the holes in the knees.
So I go to my closet and put on a pair of jeans, my Cleveland Browns sweatshirt and tennis shoes. She’s shaking and rolling before I can get out of the closet.
“It’s a cocktail party, not an ox roast,” she says. “Don’t you have any other jeans?”
“Yes.”
“What do they look like?” “They’re blue and they’re jeans. Just like the ones I’m wearing.”
I go back to the closet, trade the jeans for khakis, the sweatshirt for a white cotton sweater, the tennis shoes for loafers and present myself again for her approval.
“You can’t wear that sweater,” she declares. “Why not?”
“It’s cotton.” “So?”
“It’s too springish.” “At the rate we’re going, by the time we get to this party it’ll be fallish.”
It takes four more changes to put together an outfit that rates a “cute.” Which is not too bad for me. Probably the only time I’ll get it right the first time is if it’s a party where the dress code is Cleveland Browns sweatshirts.