Adventures in New Clothes

One of the adjustments to married life has been no longer having a say in what clothes are purchased for me. Seeing as how in the past I normally relied on Christmas gifts for the recycling of the wardrobe, this has not been a major adjustment. I find no shame in letting my wife dress me, rather, I quite enjoy it. One I don't have to go to clothes stores and pick out what I think I might like, I have someone who goes to the store for me and picks out what she likes, therefore two birds killed with one stone. I no longer have to give consideration to how I am dressed, one less thing to worry about amidst the other concerns that fill up my plate of daily decisions. And on top of it all she has much better taste than I do when it comes to fashion.

I have found, though, that there can be a few downfalls in such a system that may lead to moments of temporary embarrassment, not with regard to outward appearance but to other matters. For instance: after Christmas Jessica went out shopping with a friend from church (having fun while I was working extra long days in the paint store) in order to get bargains during the after Christmas sales. Finding such anticipated bargains she came home with two shirts and a pair of pants for me to add to my closet.

Always when getting a new pair of pants I pay careful attention to the removal of all tags and stickers on the outer surface of the garment in order to ensure that there will be no embarrassment from the lingering piece of in store identification signifying price, size, or any other pertinent information. With said task completed I sought out to break in the new pair of jeans. The first day I wore them, I put them on after work to wear because we had company coming over. In the midst of cooking dinner I realized I had forgotten something so I had to run to the grocery store in order to pick up the needed item. When I walked into Brookshires the security alarm went off. I thought to myself this is rather odd. After I paid for my lone grocery item I made my way out and set the alarm off again. Now I was really perplexed, but passed it off quickly to return to cooking my meal.

The next time I wore the pants I found that the grocery store occurrence was not an isolated event. My activities for the day were a bit more extensive than the time before and I ended up setting off alarms at the post office, Mardel, and the Compass (a local Christian book store). At the post office I was quite confused as to what would make the alarm sound and I quietly bore the stares of the people in line as I waited to pick up my textbooks (which were running late). Finally I made the connection with the grocery store and after assessing the situations in my mind came to the conclusion that the only common factor in the two different days was the jeans. Finally when Jessica and I got home I took off the jeans for an investigation of the inner parts in order to find out what was causing the repeated disturbances with the retail security systems. It did not take long to find a little tag sown on the inside that said "remove before washing or wearing." From now on I will be sure to check not only the outside of my clothes but the inside for items needing to be removed before sporting the new goods.

JM