Out of the Closet
by Thomas Greco, Publisher
No one has to tell me I’m peculiar. I have known that all my life.
And if you are a follower of this column, you certainly know that by now. So, here’s another story from your friendly neighborhood Peculiarman.
As many of you know, when it comes to clothing, my style damn near makes my eating habits look like Anthony Bourdain. Throughout the fall and winter, my wardrobe consists solely of sweatpants and long sleeve T-shirts. Spring and summer? Shorts and short sleeve T-shirts.
That’s it.
I mean if I have to go to a meeting or something, I’ll switch out the sweatpants with a pair of jeans or dockers. But l’ll do it while grumbling all the way.
This brings me to my closet story. Now, although I have a limited wardrobe, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of clothes. If you walk into my closet, you’ll probably find 100 T-shirts (80 percent of which have the New York Giants logo on them), maybe five pairs of jeans, a few dockers and one (1) suit that may or may not fit me (FYI: the shorts and sweatpants are kept in the dresser).
Just so you know, these shirts are kept in a very specific manner. I have sections. There’s the “hanging” section for shirts I wear just around the house. There’s the “regular” section for shirts that I like to wear most. Then there’s “long sleeve” shirts, “nice” shirts, “fancy” shirts and the very scarce “dress” shirts.
Unfortunately for me, my wife can never keep track of what goes where. So, after a thousand “Where’s my red Giants shirt that I bought in 1986?” arguments I took matters into my own hands.
Like most closets, above the shirt rack is a shelf. It had about a half-inch face on it. So in order to help my dear wife, I took a Sharpie and labeled the sections on the shelf face as a guide.
Needless to say she didn’t appreciate my gesture because I found my favorite blue Giants long sleeve that I bought in 1990 in the “fancy” section the next day!
Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best idea. But I was not to be denied. I need my damn shirts easy to find when I wake up at noon and no one is around.
Do you remember when you were a kid and your mom took you to the department store? She’d make you go to the women’s section while she looked for clothes and you just wanted to play on the escalator? Well, think back to those days. Remember they had those circular clothes racks with round dividers that had the sizes (S, M, L) on them?
Yup. I searched and found those dividers online. I wrote my sections on them and hung them up in my closet. Now there was no way she would put them in the wrong place!
Genius. Right?
I thought so. That is until I went to find my favorite white Giants shirt I bought in 2007. No, it wasn’t on the rack by the divider it was supposed to be. Turns out it was where all my other favorite shirts were. In the dirty hamper. Which is where I was told they’d stay until I got those “ridiculous saucers out of MY closet.”
Ugh. No one ever said it was easy being peculiar.
Want more? Check out the April 2023 issue of New Jersey Automotive!