Dress to Excess

Ruth and I have two walk-in closets.  One’s in Florida and one’s in Michigan.  The one in Florida is large enough to hold all of our clothes, a couple of dressers and set up a single bed for company.   It also stores our suitcases, a twenty-two-inch diameter exercise ball and assorted boxes and bags of mystery items.   I have nine linear feet of hanging clothes.   Ruth has twenty. It’s BIG.

Michigan’s closet is not as large but we added a second closet to house my clothes separately from hers.  In the spirit of full discloser, I do have two three foot shelves in the walk-in to house my sweatshirts and t-shirts.  I don’t remember why, but a couple of years ago – must have been a rainy day – I counted Ruth’s white blouses.  (She hangs her Michigan clothes by color.)  She had thirty-two.

Right now, our Florida closet holds thirty-two pairs of Ruth’s shoes, sandals and boots.  If she’s wearing a pair that makes thirty-three.  I have six.  Once again, in the spirt of fairness, I have nineteen golf shirts in Florida and at least that number in Michigan.

And why do I confess to what some may see as excess, because of a recent trip to an unnamed shoe store in Indian Wells, California.

Ruth, our daughter Elizabeth (BZ), and I made a stop to “look at” boots for an upcoming cross country trip that  BZ and her husband, Sutton, are planning.   Guys tend to get in and get out of stores when they shop.  We have a look, find, buy philosophy.

Gals spend more time “looking”.   They gather in the entire place visually and then wander with no conscious plan of attack.  It’s a  look, find, lift, twist, turn, compare, carry, keeping looking, replace, repeat approach. I had a lot of extra time on my hands so I made some observations that I’d like to share.

The picture on the right shows the entire men’s section of the store.  There were an ample number of choices for the discerning male “shoe hound”.   If they didn’t have it, I don’t think that you really need it.  What I did note was lacking was a section for “sports” shoes.   There weren’t any golf shoes, or baseball/softball spikes, and the basketball shoe selection could have been enhanced.

The picture below provides a look at of most of the shoes included in the women’s section.  I didn’t have a wide angle lense capable of capturing the entire section, but even a novice photo inspector will note that this section is considerably larger than the men’s.

I’m not judging.  I’m just observing.

Another observation is the fact that the women’s section had 13 rows of sandals.  While I know that women tend to wear sandals more often than men, they can only wear one pair at a time.  The 443 pair of different styles/colors of sandals available at this store appeared too excessive.  Heck the guy’s section of 21 pair seemed excessive.  I’m a limited sandal wearer myself so my observation may be prejudice.  I wear mine to and from the pool and only if the surface of the pool deck is hot or rough.  I admit to having sensitive feet.

Ruth and I struck a deal between ourselves a few months ago.  We determined that if something new came into our closet that something old should be removed.  This seemed the prudent thing to do.  As we are getting older, we don’t need as many different “outfits”.  We aren’t engaged in as many different business and social situations as we once were.  She doesn’t have students or her classroom, and I don’t attend board meetings and make public presentations as I did in my prior life.

What I didn’t realize was the concept of something “in”, so something “out” was an all-inclusive view of our closet.  I started writing this blog a couple of days ago.  When I revisited our closet this evening, our shoe score had changed.  She now has thirty-four pair and I have five.

My guess is that the trip to the shoe store in Indian Wells went beyond “looking at”.  But a deal is a deal.

Next time I need to read the fine print.