Do you ever experience literary allusions in everyday life? I do.
And I’m not trying to put on intellectual airs here, or top it the nob. Folks who know me will tell you I’m far more likely to see lowbrow connections, such as, “This is just like that time in that movie…”
But occasionally I get way literary. Such as the time over the weekend when I threw my new shirts on the bed. They were having a great sale at Belk — they have a lot of great sales there (yet another positive product placement-type mention for which I am not getting paid) — and I brought home four new shirts that were 75 percent off. (We would-be Mad Men have to dress sharp, you know.)
Anyway, when I dumped them out of the bag onto the bed, I felt a little like Jay Gatsby:
“I’ve got a man in England who buys me clothes. He sends over a selection of things at the beginning of each season, spring and fall.”
He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought more and the soft rich heap mounted higher—shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, and monograms of Indian blue. Suddenly, with a strained sound, Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily.
“They’re such beautiful shirts,” she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.”
That Daisy had issues, huh?
Of course, Gatsby tossed a lot more than four shirts into that pile. But at least I can say that unlike him, I’ll actually wear all four of these. Wear them out, most likely.
Well, enough of that. I’ve got to go out back and stand on the end of the dock and stare at a light across the water…
My wardrobe used to be top of the line but always bought on sale. Never retail. Belks is perhaps one of the better places to go when they have a good sale.
The shirts you chose are classic, always appropriate and the best way to go. I still hold to the old adage, “clothes make the man and/or woman.”
Yeah, rather than Gatsby’s extravagant linen and silk, I just went with your basic cotton…
My wife and I went to Belks this past December and I saw some interesting ties. The ties are based on painties by The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia. I bought two and get compliments each time I wear them.
Whilst on my emergency cross-country drive last fall, I went into Walmart in Wyoming and bought a pile of size XXXL plaid shirts for $9.95 each. Enough for a decade.
Are plaid shirts allowed in Hawaii?
But dude, you didn’t get a real deal. Several years ago — 2005, I want to say — I bought several long-sleeved Faded Glory sport shirts at a Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania (either Carlisle or Shippensburg, I’m not sure which) for $3 each. I still wear them as dress shirts. They hold starch better than some of my far more expensive shirts. One of them, one that looks sort of like the yellow one in the photo above, has caused Robert Ariail (who has far more expensive tastes than mine) to compliment me on more than one occasion, mistaking in for some fancy brand whose name I can’t recall.
One of my best deals ever. I also have a couple of dress shirts I’ve bought from Goodwill for about that same price, including a Brooks Brothers that fits me better than anything in my closet. Unfortunately, it’s getting a bit frayed after several years of wear. Who knows how much wear it got before I bought it…
Not exactly the most Gatbsyesque colors, but…
Do you have a green light at the end of your driveway?
oh, and an interesting factoid–the shirts you buy at Brooks Brothers outlet stores are never the same ones you buy in the retail store. I read that in Consumer Reports.