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Today I spent many hours organizing my closets — 40 Comments

1. Been there, done that, also have the hangers.

   I try to go through my clothes each time the seasons change (summer/winter), but don’t always succeed. I also keep more than I should because of the memories.

   “I remember a time when most women wore dresses and heels to get on a plane.”
   These days, I would be happy if they just wore decent clothes! I really get tired of seeing bra straps under tank tops, flip flops, and shorts in the terminals.
   Ah well.

   Our first job when we get home in the fall will be to empty one of the closets that hasn’t been touched since we move in 20 years ago: boxes of old bank records, letters, and assorted papers.
   I wonder what we will find!!

2. AesopFan:

   I’d rather go through old clothes than old papers any old day.

   Next on the list is the papers, though.

3. In our house, my wife and I have a couple of rules:

   1. The two year rule: anything that has not been worn in two years goes out. Unless it has some sort of sentimental attachment, then the rule might be bent.

   2. Something new comes into the closet, something old has to go. We try to observe this rule with everything else, but again have to make exceptions now and then.

   As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become a big believer in minimalization, or if you will, “traveling light.” But then again, leaving a home we’d lived in for 15 years to move from southern California to Idaho will do that.

4. I still usually dress when traveling; including a sport coat.

   I had a very unique situation come up this weekend where it made sense with the circumstances to attend Mass at a church I’d never visited. But I was in jeans and running shoes. Which is unusual; when out and about in public spaces, even on weekends, I rarely wear jeans (unless it’s a physical work related store (hardware, gardening, automotive) or a casual restaurant and I’m wearing “nice” jeans) and I hardly ever wear running shoes unless I’m literally running. But it was a very special opportunity that had serendipitously arisen, so I swallowed my pride and went with the flow.

5. People wore suits and skirts and dresses and heels on airplanes when the seats and rows were much wider. Now they insist on cramming us together into a plane like marshmallow peeps. You can’t expect people to dress up under those conditions.

6. Re apparel on airliners, I too recall the 1950s, when everybody dressed up for the occasion.

   But what H.L. Mencken apparently said, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public,” eventually kicked in.

   The profusion of tattoos and piercings provides another dismal example.

   Also: Shirts that say something. When did such messaging kick in?

7. Sgt Joe Friday,

   I am similar. Very much a minimalist and I go through my clothes frequently. I live in a 3 1/2 – 4 season part of the country and anything that hasn’t been worn the last time its season rolled around is donated. If I get new clothes as a gift I try to find something to eliminate.

8. I know when we moved just a few blocks after two years we still had a bewildering amount of stuff we had collected

9. I have generally ignored my wife’s clothes and how she stores them. She does not want my help in this area and I’m happy to stay out of it. As I’ve mentioned, I’m a minimalist. She is not. She’d probably lean towards hoarding if not married to me, but she’s also frugal, so she’s hasn’t amassed too large an inventory of clothes compared to most women. Early in our marriage I found using the case of “donating to the needy” a useful impetus when she was having trouble letting go of something unnecessary for her, or us.

   I do notice her occasionally doing what neo describes; trying on all her clothes and moving them around. Some get donated. She always has hopes daughters-in-law or daughters will want them, but it doesn’t happen as much as she would like. She still has a fair amount of clothes that belonged to her now deceased mother and father. Once or twice a year I complain about storing those items, but I still have had no luck getting her to part with them. We have room, but, as I wrote, I’m a minimalist and it also bothers me to see something useful sit idle. No one she’s asked wants the items; there are shoppers in Goodwill stores who would be happy to find them. Maybe one day…

10. I can accept that women no longer wear dresses, heels and pearls when flying, but is it too much to ask to change out of your pajamas before heading to the airport for a flight?

11. Jeff Cox:

    I certainly don’t expect people to dress up on planes. I don’t either, these days, when I fly.

    But some airlines still have a fair amount of room; JetBlue, for example.

    And one can dress casually and comfortably without dressing obscenely, or wearing PJ’s or the like.

12. I do this with clothes about 2X/year. I have too many articles of clothing because I like to buy new things. Now that I’m retired I truly don’t need 8 dress suits, a dozen dress shirts, and about 30 ties. I’ve managed to give away 4 or 5 suits, but the others stay in my closet. I still like to wear a suit occasionally, even for no special “suit and tie” occasion. I think it makes me feel grown up.

13. This is interesting, because I just had the exact same experience a couple of days ago. I didn’t get rid of that many clothes, but I got a huge pile of hangers because I found lots of empty hangers mixed up in the clothes. It is amazing how much more room I have. I really should have done more, but it’s hard to get rid of that ratty old shirt that you have loved for so long.

14. I’d rather go through old clothes than old papers any old day. Next on the list is the papers, though.

    I thought my sister was bad at hoarding paper when I helped clean out her basement and found ten year old bills. I found out this year that when it came to hanging onto paper, my sister was a piker . A friend died six months ago. Her daughter found out, when clearing out her mother’s house before putting it on the market, that her mother had saved bills from the 1960s.

    Several years ago I consolidated two filing cabinets into one, paper to the recycle bin. Need to get rid of my old college notebooks. Yes, they represented a lot of work, but I haven’t used them in decades.

    I have about 100 shirts-nearly all bought at bargain prices- which means that I don’t need to buy any more shirts. My grandmother gave one shirt to me 55 years ago. Men’s shirts don’t go out of style. I have gotten rid of some that were too small or worn out. When my sister visited last year, she saved 7 shirts by sewing buttons on them. Not that I didn’t know how to sew buttons; I just procrastinated too much.

    I haven’t gotten rid of some pants that are now too small. Maybe I’ll be able to wear them in the future. 🙂

15. Gringo:

    100 shirts is impressive.

    I tend to get rid of really old stuff because for women it does go out of style. Or, as with the miniskirts, it grows out of style for me. I save a few things that are too small, just in case. But mostly it gets donated.

    I have another category of clothes I get rid of: clothes whose color no longer works for me since I grew in my gray hair. Anything in the orange, yellow, or brown category really looks bad with gray hair – at least, with my gray hair.

16. I will keep some stuff for personal reasons, even if it doesn’t fit or is badly out of style. This is primarily because it has good memories.

    For example, I have two shirts that I used to wear until I hit my early 20s and my shoulders grew too broad for me to wear them any more… They WERE my father’s, who passed away when I was 12, and I could wear them from about that time until I filled out. Clearly, I was broader across the chest than he ever was — probably because, among other things, I never smoked, particularly when in my teens, while he did… probably stunted his growth. I also ate better, as most subsequent gens did until at least the 80s… I keep them for sentimental reasons. There are a couple other items that sit, unworn, in my closet, like that. But not much. Perhaps a half-dozen to a dozen items.

    Of course, females tend towards collecting clothes a lot more than men. For me, as for most men, clothes are largely disposable, though even men have their “Golden Boys”:
    http://seinfeldscripts.com/TheMarineBiologist.htm
    (you don’t have to read the whole thing, you get the gist of it in the first few lines of the script)

17. As far as T-shirts, I’d guess I have at least 50 that are “daily” wear — usually some kind of message or joke t-shirts — I especially like a good mashup. For example, I have a T-shirt which has the Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon kind of logo, with an image of Freud on it — Pink Freud, The Dark Side of Your Mom.

    Then there’s one with Minions on it, along with the logo from Firefly, and one of the Minions is wearing Jayne’s knit wool cap… under the image is “Misbehave”.

    Then there are the Calvin & Hobbes mashups (all of them “illegal”… since Waterson does not license it, there is no “legal” market for them) There are a couple that mash up C&H with Doctor Who, one that does C&H with Harry Potter, and one that mashes C&H with Back to the Future.

    There’s a shot of the moon, with Godzilla quite visible front and center… and in his paws is Elliot and E.T., with the bicycle falling down.

    Then there is the one that started it all — Doctor Pooh.

    Another genre is various jokes and messages:
    1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual
    Keep Clam and Grammar Check. Spell check is not enough.
    Duct Tape. It can’t fix stupid, but it can muffle the sound.
    Double Secret Probation. Faber College, 1964

    And others like that.

    One thing I don’t generally favor is advert t-shirts. I am not the Incredible Hulk. My chest is not a big Banner. There are very very few things I’d PAY FOR to advertise it. There’s barely anything I’d wear that is advertising, if given it for free. THAT kind of shirt tends to wind up the “housewear” category… Wear it during indoor and outdoor housework.

18. Men’s shirts don’t go out of style.
    I haven’t gotten rid of some pants that are now too small. Maybe I’ll be able to wear them in the future. — Gringo

    I think they do go out of style. I’ve got a number of collared dress shirts with collars that are too large and floppy. Definitely passé. Those should go. Full price new ones are expensive, and I’ve bought several.

    Many years ago my wife and I went through getting rid of clothes, and during my several decades of slowly increasing weight, I had accumulated several increasing sizes of pants. So I got rid of the smallest ones ad saved a few of the next size up, thinking maybe some day… Now that my wife has passed some years ago, the size I saved is too big for me. If only I had saved those smallest ones. (snicker)
    _______

    I will keep some stuff for personal reasons, even if it doesn’t fit or is badly out of style. This is primarily because it has good memories. — OBloodyHell

    I only have a couple nice short sleeved dress shirts because it almost never gets above 73 degrees in my central coast CA local. But I’ve been getting out and about more these last couple years and I wore one of those shirts in some 85 degree weather recently. Then I remembered… My late wife’s mother gave me that shirt as a Christmas present before we were married. Both gone now. It’s still a very nice looking shirt after all these years.

19. My problem is books, 30 year old boxes of class notes and exercises from college, old electronics and computers, tools for working on cars and plumbing that I no longer do, and a collection of Astounding Science Fiction from the 50’s and 60’s. Yeah, my home could be considered cluttered. I’m slowly working up the nerve to toss it all, but that would be work 🙂

20. I had to grit my teeth and dispose of my late wife’s clothes after she passed away. Better not to have them around to remind me. Still, there are things I don’t have the heart to get rid of.

21. See. This is why I like Pendleton shirts. At least a couple decades ago, when I caught on to them.

    They are classics and they wear like iron.

    Sadly Pendleton has updated to a younger, hipper style. Lime-green and strawberry plaids, that kinda thing.

22. tcrosse:

    That’s hard. My condolences.

23. I live in Mesa a.k.a. God’s waiting room. People are always downsizing or deathsizing. The latter is done by survivors, who want to finish the job as quickly as possible so they can get back to where they live. There are companies which will do this, often for what they can get selling furniture.

    Which isn’t much. Barely used living room suites go for $15. Bedroom suites for $40. China cabinets are free if they can find a taker. The kids do not want dining room suites, china, silverware, art, tools. But silverware has scrap value or can be sold in pieces.

    There’s a thrift store on just about every commercial block. That’s where I shop. The other day I got a nice pair of sneakers, worn perhaps twice. $20, but they would sell for At least $140 new. I threw out four old pairs.

    Old plates, cups, etc. go to the VA for PTSD therapy. I’m told it helps. No idea who shovels up the debris.

24. Just the other day, I got rid of my only remaining pair of polyester pants. I’m not sure, but I thought I might have had those particular pants for 30 years or close on. I hadn’t been enthusiastic about them for quite some time, of course. But once in a while lately I had trotted it out.

    This time, though, I got a little overenthusiastic with the ironing and, for the first time, managed to melt a hole in a piece of clothing. Well, so much for that one! Will not be missing it very much. But if that’s what it takes sometimes for me to give up a really old piece, maybe a mistake like that once in a while is not such a horrible thing.

25. Neo,

    JetBlue might be better than Spirit or Frontier, but not by much. It’s on par with Southwest, which is too unreliable and shabby for my taste. Plus, I go to Europe with some regularity. JetBlue isn’t exactly big on going to Rome or Athens.

    But the biggest problem for me is motion sickness. As much Dramamine as I take for it, flying still brings the worst of it out, sometimes literally. A contributor to my own motion sickness is heat. I’m much more likely to get sick when I’m hot, Dramamine or not.

    That means I don’t dress up for flights. No coats or ties or slacks. I try to wear the thinnest clothes I have and I keep the air blasting. My apologies, but if I’m sitting on, say, an 11-hour flight from Athens to Chicago, I’m not going to care much if someone else is offended by my wearing a t-shirt, windpants, and tennis shoes. They’d be more offended if I retched on them.

    At some point, you have to trust people to do what’s best for themselves, even if it’s not your personal preference, so long as it doesn’t hurt you. Otherwise, it’s another example of “I support liberty until you do something I don’t like.”

26. Huxley, Duluth Trading had the world’s best heavy all cotton polos. I bought at least 40. And then one day they just stopped selling them. I have not spent a penny there since

27. Jeff Cox:

    JetBlue and Southwest are the two airlines I’ve flown most. Most of my flying is to the west coast and up and down the west coast. I find the two airlines as different as night and day in many many ways, and on all fronts so far JetBlue has come out way ahead. This is especially true of the amount of legroom.

    I don’t think you understand what I’m talking about when I’m talking about how people dress. I don’t dress up at all nowadays when I fly. I wear something comfortable. Nor would I ever object to someone in “t-shirt, windpants, and tennis shoes.” That’s more or less the equivalent of what I wear. I’m talking about people in PJs or half-naked, basically – mostly women, it turns out, for the “half-naked” description.

28. @ Chuck > “My problem is books”

    I can relate to that. We have easily close to 4000, most in shelves AesopSpouse made for us in our “family” home over 30 years ago. A lot still in boxes because they were inherited and not yet sorted.
    We’ve been trying to pass things along to the kids and grandkids with limited success: they either already have copies of the same ones (fiction) or aren’t interested in them, especially non-fiction.
    That doesn’t count the couple of thousand we already donated to the library sales (which is where we got most of them in the first place, so it’s only fair).

    Reading through the comments, it seems like many of us have a lot of character traits in common, which may be why this is such an amicable community.

    Oh well.
    Today the clothes, tomorrow the papers.
    Housework marches on.

    https://youtu.be/eRDLaSG6csA

29. Reading through the comments, it seems like many of us have a lot of character traits in common…

    AesopFan:

    I suspect we are mostly INTJ on the Meyer-Briggs scale.
    _____________________________

    The INTJ personality type, as classified by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), is characterized by:

    * Introversion: INTJs tend to be introspective and energized by time alone, preferring to recharge independently rather than through social interactions.

    * Intuition: They focus on big-picture ideas and concepts, often generating innovative and imaginative solutions.

    * Thinking: INTJs are guided by logic and reason, making decisions based on objective analysis rather than personal values or emotions.

    * Judging: They are organized and structured, preferring a planned and controlled approach to life.

    –ChatGPT 4.o
    _____________________________

    I”ve been to this rodeo before. 🙂

30. Ah, where are the clothes of yesteryear….

    (Actually, I’m not sure I’d ever have been born were it not for pessiary…)

31. huxley, you got me — INTJ. My husband of 53 years is ENTJ, the “Commander” type. It works as long as he understands what his areas of command at home consist of. 🙂

32. On airplanes, I wear jeans and running shoes. If I have to move fast, slide down an inflatable slide, and then run, I want to be able to do it.

33. Kate,

    I want to be able to do it also, but I want to look good while I’m doing it. There will probably be news media there. 🙂

34. OBloodyHell,

    Pink Freud, The Dark Side of Your Mom.

    That’s hilarious!

35. Telemachus,

    Every so often, when my wife and I have no pre-arranged weekend plans and we decide we’d like to do something she’ll ask me what we should do and I answer, “Let’s pretend we’re grown-ups.”

    And we put on some nice clothes and go to a bar and order drinks with fancy names.

36. My problem is that I have so many souvenir T-shirts from vacations or given to me for gifts that I have never worn. I am going to put them all into a bag and take them to Goodwill so they can give them to the needy. It is easy to get sentimental over clothing (at least for me). For 16 years I had my “New Year’s Eve shirt” which I wore every NYE and Christmas Eve until it finally got so frayed I had to retire it for good and gave it to the Salvation Army. You can hold on to clothing (and books) because they have associations with happy events or times. I got rid of all my college books from the early 1970s when I had to move form my apartment in 1996 a long time ago except one and I felt that I was getting rid of a good part of my past.

37. Oh I do remember those old travel days. I was upgraded to first class once on TWA. Got to sit in the second row from the front. In front of one aisle on first class was one of those roll around hot carts from a restaurant–you know the kind with big red warming lights and roast beef rotating on the spit. Yeah baby–right there on the air plane! Of course free drinks and wine. You could also choose a ham dinner which came off of the second hot cart in front of the other aisle!

    Last time I traveled on Alaska Air, I was sitting in the aisle seat. Had my nose shoved in some young guy’s ass crack–so damn close I almost jammed my thumb up his ass! But I resorted to my training as a lady and just asked him politely to move his bare ass over to the other side of the aisle and keep it out of my face. Thank you.
    You don’t suppose he’s one of those younger guys this country is counting on to defend us in time of war do you?

38. Anne:

    You write well — many voices!

    Keep it up.

39. I usually go through my clothes for the new season. This summer, I did not. I had enough summer-ish wear stashed in my closet and didn’t need to go through the box in the basement. I guess I can just get rid of that whole thing.

40. @ huxley in re MBTI: I’m an ISTJ, but certainly in the same ball-park!

    We “typed” ourselves and our kids back when they were all in school, so they could learn to get along with each other instead of fussing about why X was different and why didn’t Z do the same things most of the others did.

    Out of 7 people, we had 1 genuine extravert and 1 dead-center on the scale.
    The rest of us are introverts ranging from “I’d rather just stay home” to “hermit.”

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