Wardrobe Archaeology

When my first college roommate, Ed, announced he was moving in with a fraternity brother the next year, he added that he hoped I find someone special.  He wasn't being sentimental.  He was tired of my laundry on the floor the entire year.  Clean.  Dirty.  Didn't matter.  I had some other slovenly habits (sorry, Ed!), but it's the laundry that comes to mind today.

There were some clothes in my college closet that lived there semi-permanently.  The clothes that continually lived on the hanger were the ones that never fit.  The ones on the floor (under the hangers) were the ones that used to fit.  You could dig through them and see the progression.  At the bottom of the pile were the first to not button; at the top were the latest casualties of my gluttony.  The clothes that still fit were piled up on the floor around my bed.

But there on the hanger was a single pair of pants.  A size 36, olive-green, heavily pleated pair of Z-Cavariccis.  They had the label on the fly and everything.  Those were the pants that didn't fit.  Those were the pants that never fit. I moved them from dorm to home, from home to apartment, and so on.  I probably should've ditched them before I left for college in 1994, but they were a hot item on the Jersey Shore... maybe not in 1994, but certainly well into the early 90s.  I just needed to lose a few pounds to make the largest Zs available fit.  So what if they were a couple years out of date.

Back to present day, today was laundry day.  I scooped up my clothes from the floor next to the bed, from the floor near the hamper, and gathered all my dirty socks from the four corners of the Earth.  I may no longer steal toiletries and deny it (or do I?), but I'm still a laundry slob.  I try to be better.  Today I hung and folded all of my clean laundry, rather than leave it haphazardly piled in the corner of the room.

As I hung some pants that are starting to get too large, I looked down.  On the floor was a pile of clothes that hadn't fit.  I wondered if I the Z-Cavs were still down there.  The archaeological dig was on. I found a surprising number of pleated pants (they'll come back!), but alas, my unused fist pumping pants weren't there.  They had unceremoniously made their way to Goodwill a few years ago and are undoubtedly being worn by a suspender-clad hipster right now.

I did find some forgotten clothes though.  I bought the shirt I'm wearing in this just-taken picture a couple years ago.  It's "slim cut."  I bought it when I needed a shirt & tie for a cruise Steph and I were going on.  I couldn't even button it.  It was at the bottom of the pile.  I'm kind of excited that it fits now.  I might actually wear it... once I get around to ironing.

When I bought this, I cursed the man who invented the 2XL "slim cut"