Pins

One of the advantages of being a guy is easily finding clothes that fit off the rack. My GF is still shocked that I can walk in to a store, locate my size, make my purchase and walk out before she has even begun to decode the random numbers that seem to apply to the sizes on women's clothes.

I am not a fan of the straight pins, however. Men's dress shirts often come with a seemingly random number of straight pins in them. I always seem to find all but one. That last one might surprise me in the washing machine, or it might surprise me in the back. Regardless, is it alway lurking there.

If I do manage to find it quickly, it's not done. It will jump out of my hand and hide in the carpet. Then it will wait. And plan it's next attack.

So I was thrilled when I got home with my latest haul of Eddie Bauer dress shirts last week. Instead of the stunningly simple, lightweight, and sinister straight pins, my shirts were held together with these new fangled paper clips.

Fancy, huh? They were easy to remove, hard to miss, and they didn't even try to sting me. I think these clips might actually like me.

Unless they're planning a late night choking.

Less ironing

Downy Wrinkle Releaser actually works. Kind of.

I picked up this little bottle because it seemed cheap and small (TSA friendly at 3 FL OZ (90ml)), and promised I wouldn't have to iron. I didn't think it would work, but shockingly it does.

Normally when you have wrinkled clothes, you have to drag out the ironing board and you have to try not to cause major injuries with the iron. And you have to listen to that horrid squeal when you open the ironing board.

Once I get past that, I don't really mind ironing, but I'm not very good at it. It takes me 20 minutes to iron a shirt.

And when my shirts come out of my suitcase, they need to be ironed.

Downy Wrinkle Releaser is much simpler. I simply hang my shirt up, give it a few spritzes with this magic liquid, and tug gently on the shirt. Most of the wrinkles come right out. Some of the one that don't come out right away, will disappear on their own in a few hours. Then I just hang it up in the bathroom when I take my morning shower and that gets rid of the rest of the wrinkles.

It's not a clean or sharp looking as if I actually ironed, but it still leaves me looking reasonably professional with minimal late night effort. And that's a worthwhile trade off for me.

A week to stay in bed

After yesterday's traipsing about hither and yon across three counties in Southern California, I finally settled into my room. I went to unpack and iron my clothes for today. I walked over to my suitcase, tripped over my big box, and finally made it. I pulled out my clothes for the morning. But there was something missing.

My pants.

While I carefully packed a day's ration of shirts and sock and whatnot for each day I'm down here, I seem to have neglected the slacks.

Now, I am no where near "cool" enough to get away with going to a business causal work event wearing jeans. I don't look avant-garde. I look like a scary electrician. And I know nothing about electricity.

So I set the alarm for the crack of dawn this morning, got up, put on my jeans, and headed off to my personal storage unit -- the local Target. Five minutes and $45 later, I had two pair of pants and could finally start my week.

I can't wait to see tomorrow's adventures.