Photo by Fujiphilm on Unsplash

My husband discovered my Macy’s bag. Pray for me.

My husband discovered the Macy’s bag I tucked behind a chair, and suddenly, he’s the FBI of my closet. I was not prepared for questioning.

“Did you buy more new clothes?” my husband asks, as he holds up a bag with the Macy’s logo on it. “I found this behind the chair in our bedroom,” he says.

“Um, um,” I rattle, a little incoherently, “they’re clothes I’m hiding for a friend, so her husband won’t know she’s been shopping again.”

“That trick went out when the kids were in high school, and we found booze in their closets,” he says, giving me a look that conveyed I was pathetic. He goes to the closet and pulls out six turquoise sweaters that look basically the same as one he’s pulled out of the Macy’s bag. Do you have one for every day of the week?

“Okay, I surrender. You’ve caught me. I’ve been clothes shopping again.”

“Do you know what I heard on the radio about women and shopping today?” he asked.

No, but surely, I was going to.

“The guy on the morning show I listen to in the car said that the average woman buys half her body weight in clothes per year.”

“Then it’s good I always lie about my weight.”

He ignores that, but goes on as he steps into my closet, “The radio guy also said the average woman has 22 garments she’s never even worn!”

“And your point is?” I asked.

“My point is obvious,” he says, taking out two of my skirts that even I have to admit could be twins. “Why do you need two skirts that are the same, one with the tag still on it?”

“They aren’t the same,” I said. “I’m giving one away. It’s out of style.”

He looks back and forth between the two skirts and shakes his head, obviously unable to tell any difference.

He then tells me that another of the radio guy’s statements was how we emulate the latest Hollywood style trends. “So, one of the skirts is the style of the latest fashion-forward celebrity, and you think you have to look like her?” he asks, sarcasm rising.

I never quite know when to shut up, and I rattle: “The latest fashion-forward celebrity is Chappell Roan. I’m a senior citizen with 18 grandchildren. Why in the world would I want to copy a woman who came to an event dressed in a sheer slip dress suspended from her nipple rings?”

“What’s a Chappell Roan?” he asks, still holding my two identical (in his eyes) skirts.

OK, Chappell wasn’t going to work — the man kind of lives in the 70s.

I think of a better example. “Jane Fonda, I tell him, would not wear the white skirt on the left; she might wear the one on the right because it’s more tailored, structured, expensive looking.”

“Why in the heck would you wear anything that Hanoi Jane would?” he asks, and I know he’s recalling his days in the military.

“Do you want to know what else the morning guy said?

“No.”

(Did my husband take notes during the broadcast? While driving?)

“He tells me anyway. “He says women spend eight years of their lives shopping.”

On my deathbed, I will think of those eight years as some of my happiest. Had I known that sooner, I would’ve paced myself. I’m already at year seven and a half.