HOW MANY T-SHIRTS IS TOO MANY?
This morning as I was layering on five Disney t-shirts – not five because I’m notoriously indecisive and couldn’t decide so just elected to put them all on, but five because it’s FREEZING here on the South Coast of England at the moment. Anyhow, I was rummaging through the airing cupboard wondering if I possibly squeeze fit another one on before the school run, when I realised just how many t-shirts we have. HUNDREDS. They dominate every clothing storage space we have – and here’s why.
You see, I never really understood why the men in my life [except my dad, he’s a brilliant sport and was all the best shopping buddy on the weekends, all through my teenage years and twenties, carrying my bags and following me through store after store right up until the week I left home and he passed the baton to Gavin] hated clothes shopping. Until I gave birth to three of them.
As a person who enjoys everything that the women’s clothes market has to offer, and I do mean *everything*; we emptied some of the loft this weekend and I found chain mail handkerchief tops and suede shorts I adored way back when, I can go out and buy dresses in all different fabrics and lengths and colours and styles, skirts and trousers, shorts and jumpsuits, jeans and jumpers, cardigans….I can find whatever I want. The amount of effort that goes into designing the clothes is clear. When my sister gave birth to her girls, she was showered with the cutest little outfits.
Then I had boys and it became abundantly clear.
BOYS CLOTHES GENERALLY SUCK. Once they’re beyond two years old, it’s all downhill in the adorable clothes section. Boys clothes designers are either very lazy, or hate boys. They’re dark, or dull, or boring and stereotypically samey. There’s very little joy in shopping for boys. It’s more a necessity. They grow and you need more of them.
There’s only one exception.
The t-shirt. T-shirts make up the bulk of our clothes in our home. We have Walt Disney t-shirts, Marvel Universe and DC, Harry Potter and Fortnite, FNAF and Minecraft, and DanTDM…and it’s the only item of clothing that my boys care about at all.
Gav also lives in his themed t-shirts and as a senior software engineer at IBM for the past twenty years, as he isn’t customer facing, he’s enjoyed a long and comfortable career, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt for most of his working days. His latest favourite t-shirt is his prized Back to the Future one that he got for the UK Games Expo, which was cancelled due to the coronavirus and we ended up streaming Virtually Expo instead.
Christmas t-shirts are also a huge thing. In fact, I buy Hallowe’en, Christmas and Easter t-shirts – and birthday t-shirts, holiday t-shirts. In fact I can justify buying a t-shirt for every occasion. I’d like to meet the person – I think it was a woman in the 1980s? – responsible for the t-shirt and shake their hand. They make our lives comfortable and colourful.
