So, as you'll remember
I have moved myself into my new – albeit temporary – bedroom. And
this has involved the entire audit of clothes.
And this meant that I
stumbled upon my Faithful Black Shirt.
The Faithful Black
Shirt isn't just any shirt. This is one of those shirts like the
Lime-Green-Zip-Up Shirt that has been with me for a while.
That is one of the
benefits of barely changing shape – staying slim for as long as
possible. As much fits you now as did ten (or even fifteen) years
ago.
And – as any lady
will tell you – black never goes out of fashion.
And that's where the
audit comes in. The audit is actually turning into pretty much a
Whole Life Audit as it has also involved me getting rid of a lot of
DVDs, CDs and basically anything of excess in the two rooms which
were occupied – the spare bedroom having previously been empty,
this means three rooms are getting sorted.
When you do a clothes
audit, you assess when it was you last wore the shirt, how frequently
you do wear the shirt, and how likely it is you are to wear it again.
Which made me consider the history of the black shirt as a whole.
This is probably the
cheapest, most simple black shirt and yet – despite it probably
having passed its proper shelf-life many moons ago, I haven't found a
similar one to replace it with. It is scorched. It actually got
scorched very early on in life when I went to visit my friend Susie
who had moved to York for her post-graduate diploma whilst I stayed
in Newcastle for mine. It got scorched because she didn't have a
steam iron, just an absolute bog-standard one which I wasn't used to.
That was a good night out.
It has a slight stain
which I have had to cover up with black permanent marker. I'm still
not sure how I got the stain, but it happened the night before I woke
up in bed with the lovely Scott who never quite went away.
And although it can't
be seen because I mended it, one of the seams ripped a little when it
got caught as I dashed off the train at Manchester after I eventually
did fall asleep after pretending to be asleep for most of the journey
because the woman who sat next to me was mad and kept trying to tell
me about various medical procedures she had been subjected to. She
spent the rest of the journey singing. Actually quite loudly. In the
quiet coach.
I don't know why I
can't find a replacement. I need to – the deodorant bleaching
around the armpits is now starting to get embarrassing, and the tips
of the collar are starting to fray. It isn't even as though I am
holding on to it for the various sentimental reasons. I just can
never quite justify buying a new shirt whilst it is just about
acceptable. Only once it has gone past that point of no return shall
there be another.
On occasions I do
managed to talk myself round and tell myself that I need to sort it
out. Those are usually the days when I am really not in the mood for
shopping and nothing quite fits, is quite right. The slim-fits are
too slim, or not slim enough, or the arms on a 40” chest are just a
little too tight, whereas on the 42” they are fine, but the shirt
then is too baggy. I hate these days.
Some days are “shopping
days” - where I can walk into a store, find exactly what I want,
and buy it straight away. Where things throw themselves off the
shelves at me, and I buy many more things than perhaps I ordinarily
would have. But mostly not.
And so it is that the
faithful old black shirt has migrated over to the new bedroom with
me, a relic of a bygone era – when I partied with gay abandon and
clubbed 'til 5am. It is, perhaps the oldest thing in that bedroom
now, having endured well over a decade of drunkenness, debauchery and
dallyancing.
And it's probably still
good for one more night out...
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