We are going to visit Daughter #2 who graduated in May, went to Australia on vacation and decided to stay a year or two. We’re taking some of her clothes with us, since she has a respectable job and needs more clothes for work.
I went through her collected belongings (which my husband drove 1000 km to collect for her) and set things up for a Skype wardrobe consultation.
I held every item of clothing in front of the webcam for her inspection and decision. It took 90 minutes and she selected a suitcase worth of things, almost none of which were useful for work. Nevertheless it was kind of fun. Even she was surprised at the quantities. How many little tank tops, can one girl make use of?
I put my compulsive classification urges to work and quickly revealed:
- 13 tank tops with spaghetti straps
- 10 tops, wife-beater style
- 11 tee-shirts
- 8 pairs of blue jeans
These are items that are in addition to what she has with her, what I’ve set aside to take, and all the other uncategorized clothes.
I suspect that she had to keep buying clothes when they disappeared under the bed or into the bowels of the closet.
Unfortunately, none of these are suitable for me to wear!
Disclaimer (since she will likely read this): I realize that this vice of too many cheap cotton tops is a very minor failing, and her wardrobe does not go much beyond this inventory. Also, to give her credit, some quite a few of these things deserved to go to the rag bag but she didn’t inherit my sorting gene. Daughter #1 did – her wardrobe is nicely sorted and organized.
Seeing Clarely 
Oh, to be able to wear spaghetti strap and wife beater t shirts, if I was able to, I would have a closet full.
You do have a point. As I said none of those items seemed suitable for me.
It’s my birthday!
Happy birthday (again). I guess I should have written a post in your honour. Maybe next year or next decade!
(1) I despise the term “wife-beater shirt”.
(2) Or perhaps this should have been #1. When you reference daughter #1 I assume you are mentioning birth order. Although there are several recent reports that talk about parents do have their favourites.
(1) I can understand your distaste, but I find it a curiously indirect but evocative term. The truth is, that I always think of a young Marlon Brando (On the Waterfront) when I think of those shirts. But I just discovered via Google that I’m wrong – he wore a t-shirt (but a skimpy one) in that movie and an “undershirt” (aka “w-b”) in Streetcar Named Desire. http://www.flickr.com/photos/diogioscuro/5761225392/
Here is a 1994 (shows how timeless the subject is!) article: http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/27/magazine/style-on-file-the-undershirt-comes-out.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
(2) OF COURSE I was referring to birth order. I despite favouritism toward one child. I might even write a blog post about that.
Perhaps your daughter has inherited a hoarding gene? I suggest this because I share some of her genome and am unable to throw out unmatched socks, except under a general anesthetic. But I have no wife beaters, despite, curiously, my wife’s urgings that I buy some.