An overlooked challenge of the pandemic is that it has been very hard on clothing, specifically shirts. I have never been easy on clothing. I have a long history of getting dirty. When we lived on the farm, my wife, Glenda, was known to sometimes hose me down and make me take my dirty clothes off in the woodshed before I could come into the house. Back in my lawn mowing days on the North Carolina coast, not only did I come in encrusted in dirt from a yard that was more dust than grass at times but I also ended up fishing, walking on the beach, gardening and working at my desk. It all required a lot of different clothes, but I am not sure that I ever had a five shirt day.
The pandemic has made it more challenging to do almost everything except work from home. The statement that clothes make the man or woman has changed to shirts make the man or woman. With Zoom and Team conference calls, how you look on video is what matters these days and our video cameras only show us from us from the face down to our desks. So we pay attention to the shirts that we wear.
The day that I wore five shirts started out normally. I got up and put on the somewhat tattered shirt that I had on before we went to bed. We will call it shirt number one. It was a fine shirt for a simple breakfast. There was little danger that dropping some of my egg and toast on that shirt would make it worse than it already was. I planned to change shirts after breakfast anyway before work but I forgot. I went up to work and happened to check on the delivery of some long-sleeved tee shirts I had ordered from Lands End. I was surprised to see that according to FedEx the shirts were at the front door. Since I had forgotten to change after breakfast I got myself downstirs and changed into one of my new shirts. Then I went back to work in what we will call shirt two. I took part in a Zoom seminar call but the only video was the presenter so I was properly attired.
However, when I came down to lunch, Glenda did not even let me get into the kitchen before she said, you cannot eat lunch in that new shirt. Since I wanted to go on a walk, I changed into a light sweatshirt (shirt three) and went for my walk fully expecting to change into the shirt that I had on at breakfast but as is often the case, the shirt I had on in the morning was already in the laundry so I put on another lunch-approved shirt (shirt four). I had lunch and with an impending Zoom call after lunch, I changed once again. This time I knew that I would be part of the presentation so I put on my WideOpen Networks shirt (shirt five) pictured above.
Mid-afternoon finally arrived as I went down and changed back into the shirt (shirt four) that I had worn at lunch. I have managed to stick with shirt four through the evening. Shirt five is hanging back in the closet. If all goes well, I will manage to stay out of shirt six, my nightshirt, until after midnight or tomorrow when I hope to get by with only three or four shirts.
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