LMNOP

One day last week I decided to go shopping on my lunch break.  (I do this somewhat often, mostly because I am too antisocial to befriend coworkers and go out to lunch with them.)  While shopping, I tried on a blue shirt, because I recently made the decision to integrate more color into my wardrobe.  You see, as a direct consequence of my indecisiveness, about 90% of my wardrobe is made up of black shirts.  I get overwhelmed by the selection of colors available and am usually left with two options: just pick the black one, or have a nervous breakdown on the floor of the store.  As a result, I own more black clothing than a teenage goth shoplifter.

Anyway, this blue shirt was nice, and it fit.  I did get a weird feeling of deja vu while trying it on, but I chalked that up to the fact that I was in this particular store for the third time in one week.  I bought the shirt and went back to work feeling quite pleased with myself for making so much progress on The Great Wardrobe Diversification of 2009.  My wardrobe now included blue!  I resolved that Blue Shirt would make its debut on the coming Casual Friday.  Life was good.

So Casual Friday came and went, and the blue shirt was broken in according to plan.  That night, I threw the it down at the foot of my bed, where it could start getting to know the other 14 garments on my floor.  (I like my clothes to be able to get to know each other this way, as opposed to being in a stiff, formal environment like a closet or drawer.)

I didn't think about the blue shirt again until Sunday night, when I was scouring the floor of my closet looking for something suitable to wear kayaking Monday.  As I rummaged through the various articles of clothing on the closet floor, I came across the blue shirt.  This puzzled me, because I could distinctly remember throwing it on the ground at the foot of my bed on Friday night. How was it now in my closet?   Was my crazy, 26-year-old mind starting to fail already? 

I checked at the foot of the bed, and saw that the blue shirt was very much still there.  I felt momentarily relieved that I had not, in fact, hallucinated the memory of putting it there--that is, until I realized that I had definitely bought two of the same shirt.  Holding one in each hand, the memory came rushing back--I had bought Bue Shirt the First about three weeks ago, and then worn in on--you guessed it--Casual Friday.  That was the reason for the feeling of deja vu I got when I tried on Blue Shirt the Second.

So the good news is, I have two identical blue shirts now; this will undoubtedly come in handy if I ever spontaneously generate a twin.  Unfortunately, the bad news is that I am a wacko nutjob who is so absentminded she bought the same exact shirt twice in one month.  And I have to say, buying a series of identical blue tops is not the great diversification I had in mind when I decided to start mixing things up, wardrobe-wise.

Since I can't really do anything to fix this problem, I've been thinking about what I can do to prevent the same mishap from occurring again, because I really don't think my budget can handle me double-buying every piece of clothing I come across.  Something tells me that "BUY EVERYTHING IN DUPLICATE" is not the savviest motto to live by in a failing economy.