How the hell did that happen?

I needed some good clothes because I’m going on a cruise next week. The cruise has two “formal nights”, and Vicki was trying to convince me to rent a tux for the cruise, but I figured I could use my existing suit, because it’s only about 8 years old and only been worn about 5 times. But I really needed a couple of good shirts to wear with it – the shirt I normally wear when I need to wear a tie looks bad – sort of iron scorched or something. My only other shirt with a big enough neck and long enough sleeves for wearing a tie is missing a button, so it’s been out of circulation for a while. I also need a couple of pairs of Dockers or similar casual pants.

So it was with great trepidation that I let Vicki drag me into Mens Wearhouse. Like I said, I only needed a few things, but I know she has great ambitions of getting me to dress better. She keeps muttering about me needing a navy blue blazer and stuff.

And so it began. First the navy blue blazer, then the cream coloured silk blazer, then the three “no wrinkle cotton” shirts, then the two silk ties to go with the shirts, then the dress shoes, then the two pairs of pants, then socks. I was dreading the price tag. But it came out to be more than twice what I thought it was going to be, and about 8 times as much as it would have been if I’d just bought the things I’d planned to buy. Yikes. I don’t think I’ve spent that much on clothes on the last 5 years in total.

The scariest thing is that Vicki is going to expect me to dress like this. Which means more clothes – not much point wearing shirt and tie and blazer to work one day and jeans and a t-shirt the next. And that will mean frequent trips to dry cleaners and all that stuff. What an expensive pain.