flush the fashion

I am a wardrobe pack rat for several reasons. I am most comfortable in old worn-out, familiar clothes. Often, my need for new threads is caused by my increasing girth, and I hang on to that which I've grown out of so that I'll have it when I grow back into it. In fairness to me, I do recognize my increasing condition, usually because I've had to buy new clothes, lose weight, and then depend on my old clothes once again. So my closet is crowded with pants and shirts that I'm either waiting to shrink back into or dreading to fill out again. It is amply supplemented by things that still fit, but are worn entirely to ratty to wear in public (though I still do), and by things that have been hanging there since they went out of style 10 or 15 years ago.
Saturday, I was splitting firewood in the back yard when the sole completely came off my boots. The shoes I wear to work got stuck on the clutch pedal of my truck because the pedal found its way through the sole of my shoe. While doing laundry, my dear wife was embarrassed by the gaping hole in a pair of pants I wear to work regularly, and by the fact that I can't carry anything in the pockets of another pair because the pockets have no bottoms.
So today, Allison made me accompany her to the mall to alleviate some of the problem. She said, with hope in her voice, "We'll get you some new things and maybe you can clear out some of the clutter in your closet." When we arrived at the store, what to our wondering eyes should appear? Lo and behold, there were the contents of my closet. There were all those old out-of-style shirts that I haven't worn in 15 years. There were, and I'm not lying, two shirts of exactly the same fabric, color, print and cut as two ancient shirts hanging on my rack. Many other shirts of the same late eighties and early nineties fashion that we so happily watched wane. Allison said, "silly me for thinking that you needed anything new", and we made our way to A & F. As we browsed through pants and shirts that looked like they'd been dragged behind a dump truck on a cross-country trek and then left out under the porch through fall and winter, Al found a pair of pants that looked exactly like the ones that had prompted her to bring me to the mall in the first place. "Look," she said, "here is a hole of the exact size and shape and in the same location as the one in your brown pants!"
We returned home with only a new pair of fresh kicks to replace the ones whose sole is laying under a log in the back yard. No new pants, no new shirts. There is nothing new under the sun. What goes around, comes around.
Now please don't think I'm bashing current fashions. This is how I've dressed my whole life. I feel very affirmed and validated. The whole ordeal made me feel very hip and in. Even the music and video playing in the stores was familiar. I tried on my shoes beneath a monitor blaring scissor sisters whose song sounded like a strange melding of Elton John and the Black Crowes, and whose video looked curiously like a cross between the artist formerly known as prince and the B52s. Really good music.
Spinning wheel goes round and round.