Today I cleaned out my closet and am throwing out my maternity and fat clothes. I am celebratory. But that's not what this post is about.

I went through Mr. RB's side of the closet in addition to mine. This is a much bigger job. Because unlike most straight men, MRB has a real thing for clothing.

It's one of the downfalls of being married to a costume designer. Fashion-consciousness just should not be one of the genes on the Y chromosome. It creates all kinds of headaches.

Because MRB can't just have utilitarian clothing. No. His clothes must be interesting. His shirts are embellished with embroidery, trimmed with piping, textured with burnt-out velveteen, and printed with wild tropical patterns, chinese dragons, or paisleys like some nightmare out of the 60's. He wears stuff that would get a schoolboy beaten up on the playground. (He's plenty safe at GEEC, though,except from guys that probably want to steal his shirts.) And when he sees something he likes, he HAS to buy it, deaf to my nagging queries about whether he actually needs another shirt.

Consequently, he has more clothing than I do. A situation that threatens to upset the balance of the universe.

I don't really mind that aspect of it. He has an office job and I do not, and a stay-at-home mom has no need for an extensive wardrobe for every season. I like nice clothes as much as the next woman, but am not a compulsive shopper and have no problem wearing the same things, year in and year out, until they fall apart. What I do mind is closet clutter.

If it were just the stuff he bought for himself, that would be enough to deal with. But his parents contribute as well. They are convinced he dresses too casually at work, failing to understand after 20 years of his employment at GEEC that its conservative dress codes do not apply to their artists. 'Cause you can't cramp the artists' style, yo? They can come to work in jeans and flip-flops if they want, so they can think they are being treated well and not ask questions about why there's no budget for real brass buttons on a character's coat while shut up, we're about to buy Marvel.

So every Christmas and birthday, and every time they happen to hit a sale at an outlet mall, MRB's parents load him up with more clothes, of the type they consider professional and attractive. Stiff-collared polo shirts. Dress slacks. Pinstripes. They have, thank God, given up on ties, an archaic item which I have seen MRB wear all of once in my life. These classy duds are hung in the closet, usually worn once out of filial obligation, and then collect dust. I have tried to explain to them the wastefulness of their time and money in the endeavor to turn their son into a preppy businessman, but it is clear from whence his stubbornness came.

So every six months or so, I do a major closet cleanout. If I haven't seen MRB wear something in the intervening period, it goes. And since he tends to stick with his favorite flavor of the month, often spending several weeks wearing the same nine or ten shirts over and over, I usually collect a fairly sizable pile. I have been known to dispose of them without his knowledge, and he has never missed a thing I've thrown away. However, I don't like being devious, so I usually let him go through the pile for a final say, in case he has an emotional attachment to anything in particular.

The problem now is, I've done this so many times that we really are down to mostly things that he really, really likes, even though he doesn't wear them much. So what do I sacrifice?

The tropical tiki shirt with the 50s cheesecake babes?























The samurai shirt with the giant koi? (Hideous. Even more so in person.)






















Or how about this little satin number, which I like to call the Chinese Matrix?






















There are actual Chinese characters on there. They probably translate as, "You dumb American, all your economy now belong to us."

Or how about this one?





















Because does a guy really need a shirt the color of cat vomit?

But see, he really likes all these shirts. He just never wears them. (Actually, that's a lie. He wears the matrix one quite a bit. I just wanted to post the picture.)

And that doesn't even scratch the surface of all his long-sleeve button-downs. He has four black dress shirts. FOUR. Oh, but they're each a little different. One is ultrasuede. One has intricate embroidery around the collar and cuffs. One has burnt-out velvet texture. And one is a plain cotton shirt in case he's going to a rehearsal and wants to avoid pick-up lines from the male dancers. So you see, they are all indispensable.

If I weren't so Right-Brained myself, we'd have some serious issues.