Brad is a clothes whore. I might have mentioned that before but its definitely worth repeating. He loves to buy clothes. The more the better. With Brad its all about quantity not quality.

When the boys were younger and lived at home he never had time to shop but now that we are empty nesters, he has made it a point to fill the boys closets with his clothes. In the beginning of this empty nesting phase of our lives I enjoyed the fact that he wanted to shop with me. The saying be careful what you wish for totally applies to me.

Now I don't even tell him if I am hitting the stores in fear he will want to come. I definitely enjoy his company but when he joins me, we end up spending so much more money then I originally intended and sometimes we don't even make it to my departments.

Brad does not care what stores I go too. Where ever I go, whether it is Bloomingdales, Banana Republic, DSW, Target, Macy's or Lululemon, he is in. He loves a sale the most and always shops with a budget in mind (the accountant in him) but he always manages to buy something.

We tried the plan that for every new clothes item he buys an old one would get donated but he couldn't part with anything. We then tried the plan that once he wear an item he would turn the hangar the other way so we could see how long it takes him to wear all your clothes. That did not work because Brad has to have all his hangars facing the same way or he goes nuts (one of his "rules" - another blog).

I really do like that Brad cares about how he looks and enjoys clothes except he has an achilles heal in this clothes thing. He can not see stains, any stains on his shirts (no matter how big or what color - he says he is color blind - but I am not buying).

So our current situation to his out of control clothes buying habit is that whenever he has a stain on a piece of clothes, I get to throw out/donate the shirt depending on if I can get stain out (or if I even try). Now you can imagine his efforts to hide clothes from me so I can't see the stains. The only thorn in his plan is that I do the wash. So if I get tired of a shirt or its stained beyond repair, I get rid of it. Unfortunately for me, if he finds it he puts back in his closet. I have even gone so far to spit on a shirt and then throw it out (true story) but he found it and retrieved it. We were at odds and we had a problem.

Our solution was that he would have inside shirts and outside shirts. If he really loved the shirt and it was stained he promised to not wear it out of the house, thus an inside shirt. I made him pinky promise and I would have taken blood but even I had to admit that might have been too much.

For the most part, Brad only wore inside shirts inside ( I don't know why I had to see the stains but whatever- he was happy) and outside shirts out of the house. That is until the other day.

We were going to our spinning class. We had driven separately, I left first not seeing what he was wearing (my mistake) and he sets up his bike next to me (his mistake) and then I saw his shirt and gasped. I quietly (??) said to him that I thought he was wearing an inside shirt out of the house. What is it doing at the gym?? He rationalized that if he was going to sweat why would he wear a good shirt. I must have rolled my eyes so loudly (it's possible) that the girl sitting on the other side of him started laughing. She said she had just had this "discussion" with her husband the other day.

Brad then again promised that he would never ever wear an inside shirt out but I knew better. When he took the shirt off and put in wash, I threw it in garbage can. He still has not noticed and thankfully the garbage was picked up today.

Happy Empty Nesting!!