Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Never Say "Enough"

This thread on the Ask Andy Trad forum asks the membership to chime in on the always ticklish question of when exactly does a guy has enough stuff, for Pete's sake?

I am an egregious offender, although not as bad as I was. I have two closets jammed to capacity, plus three clothes racks, and two closets filled with cold weather suits and jackets in the family's spacious Catskill retreat (i.e. a small cabin).

I once decided not to wash a single shirt until I had been through the entire supply, but had to give up after only five months. The dirty pile got too big.

A lady friend, who I will identify only as Mrs. Peel, took a look round and opined that I had no need to buy another item of clothing, ever.

In my defense, the bulk of the items are from eBay, or thrift shops, or obtained at a deep discount. And often the eBay things are not quite right and never will be, and as anybody who has sold anything on eBay knows, flipping unneeded items can be a colossal pain in the butt.

Some rainy weekend I will measure and photograph all the perfectly good clothing I am never going to use and have a massive blowout on eBay and the exchange thread on Ask Andy. (If I can shanghai Mrs. Peel into helping the grim task will be a lot more fun.) Whatever's left will go to the Bargain Barn in Sharon, Conn., which uses the proceeds to help the underserved obtain medical care.

My problem is I cannot resist a bargain, or buying many of something I like, especially if said something is going out of production.

Like regular chinos from Lands End. They are apparently going completely over to the non-iron fabrics, which is foolish. The non-irons are great for having a nice sharp crease more or less permanently in place, but I suspect I will wear a hole in the seat before they soften and degenerate enough to obtain the status of "fish pants," the highest honor a pair of chinos can attain.

So when the old model appeared on the overstocks page, accompanied by dire warnings from the Trads that this was the end of the line, I quickly bought four pairs, cuffed.

I can breathe easy now.

2 comments:

Patrick Murtha said...

When it comes to clothing and books, I'm a maximalist and always will be. In other areas, I'm way minimalist -- if you could take a look at my apartment, you would notice almost no furniture. Couch -- who needs it? Ten more pairs of Allen Edmonds -- yes sir! I'm odd that way.

Charles said...

Sorry to hear of your loss. The next one you should promise to make famous on your blog.

I hope you have not lost your photographer.