Suits Me Fine

One can say that my husband’s fashion style is frozen in time.  Perhaps it is more accurate to say that he lacks style completely.   For thirty years he has worn the same beef-role penny loafers from L.  L. Bean.  When I say “the same” I am not really exaggerating; his current ones have been re-soled seven or eight times.  He wears classic chinos, pleated and cuffed.  For work he wears a starched cotton button down; as soon as he comes home he changes to a Lacoste polo.  Once a year I am able to trick him into going shopping with me; I consider it a coup if I am able to slip a new suit and a new blazer into his closet.  What he does not know is that every time I buy him something new, a similar piece of clothing mysteriously disappears from his collection.

To make matters worse my husband has a dangerous color sense.  He is a graduate of the University of Oregon, where he spent several of his formative years being brainwashed into believing that bright yellow and deep green should be worn together.  During the 90s he had a deep green blazer with gold buttons—like he had won the Masters—that he proudly wore to work with a yellow shirt and Oregon insignia tie.  The shame!  It was even more frightening when he improvised with other vibrant colors, layered with impunity.   Olive pants with a pink shirt, blue tie and brown plaid jacket.  There have been many nights when I have waited until he fell asleep so that I could edit the clothes he had hung out for the following day.

There is one fashion train-wreck that stands out above them all.   It begins and ends with a funeral.  Almost a decade ago we left our home to mark the passing of a wonderful woman, my mother’s beloved cousin, who was certainly sent by the gods on a ray of sunshine.  We packed our family and all of our stuff in the car in order to drive to Long Island to celebrate her life and say goodbye.  The next morning, we rose early and my husband could not find his suit anywhere.  It turns out he left his suit bag on our bed at home.  As a result, he had no choice but to wear Levi jeans and a plaid flannel shirt to the funeral.

When my father passed away two years ago, the news set into motion a series of well-coordinated events.  My son, who was in college and still awake from the night before, boarded a plane in Oregon on two hours’ notice.  We left Boston and collected him in Atlanta, all four of us changing to the same Delta flight to Florida.  This time, I got ahead of the curve with my husband; I personally made sure that the suit bag he pulled out made the trip with us, admonishing him that I would not tolerate another lumberjack episode.  “Don’t worry,” he kept assuring me.  The next morning, as we were all dressing for the morning service, my husband let out an exasperated cry:  “Oh no!”  I came running out of the bathroom, where I had been fixing my hair. 

Sheepishly, my husband looked at me.  “I don’t want you to be upset,” he said.  “You have enough to worry about today.”  “Better tell me what it is,” I said, bracing for the worst.  While my husband managed to get his suit bag all the way to Florida, he had grabbed his tuxedo by mistake.  Here we were, still in shock over the suddenness of the situation, and my husband was ready to party.  “It’s OK,” he argued, “I can simply wear the tux jacket over my shirt and tie with some dark pants.”  I looked at him in disbelief, simply too stunned to reply.

There is something that happens to moms when their kids get sick or hurt or bullied.  We turn into creatures of infinite clarity, able to solve the most complex human equations with raw instinct and our bare hands.  At this moment, my husband was just another lost child in need of maternal salvation.  I went to the closet and assessed the situation, pulling out some dark pants to go with his white shirt and dark tie.  I threw them on the bed and pointed, unable to speak but commanding him nonetheless with daggers from my eyes.  I seized his computer and Googled Nordstrom, having noticed when we arrived late the night before that our hotel was next to the mall.  I called the men’s department, asking them what dark blazers they had in 46XL.  Giving my account number over the phone, I purchased a jacket identical to one my husband already owned, asking the salesperson to remove all labels and vent stitches and to meet us in fifteen minutes at the north entrance. 

If husbands cannot be relied upon to act in appropriate fashion, at least there is Nordstrom!

Tomorrow's blog:  Potties Field