The Idiot's Guide to Men's Wear

We tried something new recently.

It's called:

Buying a suit.

We won't be making a hobby of it. In fact, we hope to never have to do it again.

After lunch at Chipotle, Jeff, Delaney and I drove over to Kohl's (I had a 30% off coupon) and wandered into foreign territory. Naively, I really wasn't nervous at the start.

Hmmm...

What's with the numbers? They're obviously a measurement of something, but what? Although, who thinks to bring a tape measure? But even if I had, I wouldn't know what part to hold it up to. Is this number from shoulder to shoulder? Is this one around the neck? And what about this one? Is it from inner thigh to armpit? Thumbnail to eyebrow?

There was no poster on the wall with multiple photos and captions entitled, "Info on Measuring for the as of Yet Unsuited". (That would have been very helpful.)

Unfortunately, this guy wasn't there either:


So the only thing to do was to just start trying things on.

First, a shirt. However, the shirt Jeff picked up was heavily packaged. It included cardboard, several pieces of plastic, pins, a twist tie or two and a bit of tissue paper (I assume to dry away one's tears of frustration). It was tediously similar to unpackaging the super duper GI Joe campsite set for your kid on Christmas morning.

We hoped fervently the whole time that the thing would actually fit him once it was freed from its restraints because there was no way we would be able to wrestle it back into its former confines.

Of course there was no trash can nearby, so Jeff just piled all the debris on top of a display of shirts.

(We don't normally leave piles of trash in our wake, honestly.)

I'm overjoyed to report that the shirt did fit (and so are the workers at Kohl's since that's fewer bits of garbage for them to carry off to the dumpster out back).

At this point, we overheard some poor soul who had just wandered in tell his wife, forlornly, "I don't even know where to start."

A kindred spirit! Jeff almost walked past a couple of racks to give the guy a high-five.

Delaney quickly found a great tie. All three of us liked it right away so we didn't even bother looking in that section anymore. The jacket and trouser sections were looming forebodingly nearby.


We gingerly ventured into the dark underworld and began to lift hangers heavily laden with garments from racks, peering at them with innocent eyes, silently begging them to give up their secrets.

Almost immediately, I could tell that this place had old man suits for people who would normally wear bowling shirts and khakis and young man suits for those who don skinny jeans and body piercings. So where were the suits for guys who are pushing 40 and wear band t-shirts and cargo shorts?

Thus, our search began.

About an hour and a half later, we were standing in the checkout line with the most suitable selection we could find draped over our arms.

This slightly creepy looking guy is not Jeff in his new suit:

Nor is this one:


Sorry, they just made me laugh.

Another thing that made me laugh giddily was staring at the receipt as we were exiting the store. You see, everything was on sale for 30%-50% off, so that combined with the amazing aforementioned coupon resulted in...ONE RIDICULOUSLY CHEAP SUIT!


(Not Jeff's suit.)

Ahhh, here he is...


(A pitiable plea to those of you who are well-versed in the world of men's wear: Please do not inform us of any fashion faux-pas we may have committed in pairing this jacket with these trousers or that tie with the shirt, etc. Just pat us on our ignorant backs and nod, saying, "Good job, suit pickers." People with discriminating taste could probably pick the above ensemble to scorned pieces in seconds, but it's what we ended up with after a couple of very uncomfortable hours of searching, and honestly...


...fashion blunders and all, I think my man looks HOT!)