Well, At Least He Likes to Shop

So for most of my purchasing life, I have been a label whore. Or at least, if I couldn't afford the label, I knew damn well I was supposed to have it. I was always reading In Style or Cosmo or whatever and picking up things that caught my fancy.

Hubba-hubba and I could not be more different when it comes to the label thing.

A city near us has the Big Dog manufacturing center. About 10 years ago, he found out they were having a "seconds" sale and thought we should pay a visit. There we found T-shirts for 3 bucks or less, with only minor imperfections. And since normally Big Dogs is a mid-priced brand, he was pleased with his thrifty finds. I know few men who would be willing to sort through hundreds of shirts in a huge cardboard box on the ground, but he was happy as a clam thinking about all the money he was going to save.

But for some reason, that was a life-changing experience for him and he now refuses to buy shirts that are more than five dollars. I cannot even tell you my frustration with this man. I don't shop at Wal-Mart, but I don't think you can hardly get a regular priced tee even there for less than eight. Keep in mind also that this price comparison he is doing was ten years ago!

I am blessed to have a husband that loves to shop, but the flip side is that he wants to buy the butt-ugliest shirts to wear because they are cheap. Make no mistake, he will insist on wearing them out. With me. Which just isn't gonna fly. I cannot even count the number of times I have told him that he is not going to wear that in public.

We recently went to an Oakley factory sale, where they had, among other things, shirts for ten bucks. I urged him to buy them, as they were originally something like 25 bucks. Nothing doing, too expensive, according to the sultan of spendthriftedness.

The clothing maker means nothing to him. In his mind, Hilfiger might be some member of English Parliament, and Zegna a particulaly virulent-sounding disease. When we had money, I bought him some nice clothes, always lying about how much I spent. I knew that if I told him how much I had truly spent, he would make me take it back.

This year a balmy Christmas rolled around. I told him, "Honey, why not wear your button-down Lucky shirt?"

He looked at me as if I had grown two heads and a beard.

"What lucky shirt? What exactly makes it so lucky and why have you only now told me that I own one?"

Sigh...