What Not To Wear

I like that show "What Not To Wear" on TLC. You know the one, where the two fashion experts help someone learn how to dress. That's an oversimplification of course. Here's how it works; well-meaning friends and family of someone who is a walking fashion disaster secretly blow her in to the show, then secretly videotape her going about her business dressed badly. Then Stacy and Clinton (the aforementioned fashion experts) surprise the victim and confront her with all the incriminating videotape and offer her a $5000 credit card to buy all new clothes in New York City under the condition that she give up her old clothes and follow their "rules". Although the first quarter of the show is pure gratuitous humiliation, it's all in good fun (tell that to her) and the rest is actually pretty uplifting. In the end, the slovenly "before" morphs into a dazzling "after" and gains tons of self esteem and grace. Seriously, by the time you get to the big "reveal" at the end, you're really rooting for her.

I'm fascinated with this show because they actually give great advice. I always learn something. But there's a predictable side effect to watching this show. Every time I watch it I get the urge to purge. No, not throw up. Purge my closet. I watch Stacy and Clinton hold up some article of the victim's old clothing like a decaying carcass and I think, "I have that in my closet." Now I don't think the contents of my closet are embarrassing really, but there are always a few things that just stay in there a little too long. I have a time-frame deficiency that prevents me from remembering when I bought something. When I think "that's probably a couple of years old", in reality it's apt to be more like six or seven. I confess, I have found a few choice articles in there that are twenty years old. I started taking advantage of a visual cue to help me out recently. If it has shoulder pads the size of throw pillows, it might not be as new as I thought.

So the other day after watching Stacy and Clinton humiliate - I mean educate -yet another victim, I got that urge to purge and made a nice big pile of clothes to give to Goodwill. Then I got right into it and dug a little deeper, and made another pile of perfectly good and rarely worn clothes to take to a consignment shop for resale. You know, these are the things I hate to just give away because they're really nice, I just haven't worn them much for some reason. Probably because I didn't know the "rules" when I bought them. Like if you're 5'6" you don't buy "petite" pants. Sorry, I mean trousers. (See how much I've learned?) A permanent wedgie is no fun. So I asked around to find out which local consignment store was a good one, since I've never done this before, and got an enthusiastic endorsement for one in particular. I called.

"Have you ever consigned with us before?"
"No, I haven't. How does it work?"
"Well, we only accept the better labels, and only things that are in season. What do you have?"
I took the phone into my closet and started reading off some labels, which didn't actually mean anything to me, but I remember buying them in a good store so thought they might mean something to her.
She said "Mmm hmm. Well the main thing is that they are less than three years old. Are they?"

Uh oh. The old deficiency. I had no idea. They could be. Or they could be twelve years old. A quick glance told me they all passed the shoulder pad test. That was encouraging. So I hemmed and hawed and said well maybe I'd just bring them in and have her take a look. NOT LIKELY. I don't think I could take the beat-down that would surely ensue. The pitying look, the decaying carcass two-finger pick up, the inevitable thanks-for-stopping-by rejection. So guess what....my Goodwill pile just got bigger.