Glinda the Gullible
By Glinda
I was clothes shopping for my son not too long ago. They had a promotion going, where if you bought three of the same shirt style, you could get them for $15 or some such deal that was hard to pass up. He really needed shirts for school, and these were perfect.
For some reason, I can never find my son’s size in the colors and styles that I want, and this time was no exception. I had a navy blue and a mustard yellow shirt, but the red was a size too small. They had nothing else.
That’s when I heard it.
“Gliiiindaaaa….”
It seemed to be emanating from the bottom of the shelf. I bent down a bit and said, “Who are you?”
“Gliiiindaaaa, I am the white shirt, forlornly folded along with my ignored brethren. No one will buy me.”
“For good reason,” I snapped. “Don’t you know that I have a five year old? And why are you talking to me like you are a ghost?”
“Weellll… Ahem, you’re right, there is no real reason to talk like a ghost. I just thought, you know, white, ghost… It was a theme. Never mind.”
“Ok, I get it, but you know I can’t buy you. A five year old in a white shirt is just asking for trouble.”
“But Glinda, I match everything. You live in a warm, sunny climate. And, you know that you are pathologically unable to buy two of the same shirt in the same color.”
“Ha! If you know that much about me, then you also know I am pathologically concerned about clean shirts. And I have a better chance at winning the lottery than you staying clean for longer than ten minutes. Tops.”
“One word, Glinda. Bleach.”
“Oh fine. I just know I’m going to regret this.”
And sure enough, today that white shirt became toast. From spilled blueberries, to marker, to dirt, it is now relegated to “at home” wear.
Curse you, white shirt! May you never darken, or uh, whiten my doorstep again!
Maybe I’ll give you another chance when he hits high school. Maybe. But you’ll have to do some pretty sweet talking.
(Looking for the TeenyManolo Sweepstakes? Go here)
December 4th, 2007 at 8:15 am
WHen my son played baseball (3rd grade through high school) his uniforms always had white pants. Now what genius thought of this I can’t say. I was, however, determined to keep them white at any cost. I tried a number of combinations to remove grass stains and one day while washing the floors I thought “What the hell, it can’t get worse” and the next time he came home with grass stains, I pre-treated them with Lestoil and voila! no more grass stains. The End
December 4th, 2007 at 8:58 am
White shirts are my nemesis.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Forget the white shirt in high school. Things just don’t change that much from 5 year old to teenager. Sorry.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Ha! Ha! Ha! I LOVE YOU! You crack me up.
The oxi-clean spray works wonders!! I’m serious. Although, you have to do it right when the stain occurs for the best results. Doubt your baby will do that. If you could train him to do it, it would be good for your laundry, but not his rep. The kids would probably make fun of him and that would mean therapy bills down the road. That is much more expensive than a shirt. You’re right. Forget it. Let his wife deal with it later in life.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:28 am
A woman in my exercise class brings her twin boys (four years old) to the playground while we work out. They start in blindingly-white shirts that are covered with mud after an hour. I asked her how she gets them so clean (really, I was asking, “Are you nuts to put your little boys in white shirts?”). She soaks them over night in a mixture of dishwasher soap, laundry soda and detergeant. I tried it on some old sheets and it works, but it seems like it would be easier just to buy navy shirts.
December 4th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Haha! You crack me up. I can’t buy more than one of the same color shirt either.
December 4th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Let this be a lesson to you: never listen to talking sale items.
December 4th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
I’m glad my pain is giving you all such enjoyment.
December 4th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Sales ARE very persuasive aren’t they? It’s funny, though, that you can’t hear all of them? For example, my husband can’t hear a thing when we walk into Tiffany’s or Crate and Barrel. He does hear them screaming at Orchard supply and REI, though.
I too find that white shirts on sale talk me into it every time (and me with a seven month old spitter-upper!), but I can’t hear a word when I walk by… um… nevermind.
December 4th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Encourage him to become an artist; then the stains have street cred!
December 5th, 2007 at 1:42 am
I too have fallen prey to the siren call of the white shirt. What’s even worse is when it is a really cool logo shirt that would be just great(!)…if it were not on white. Not gonna do it…just not gonna do it again.
December 5th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
To this day I can’t keep my white shirts white - although the blueberry and marker stains have turned to au jus and red wine stains. If bleach doesn’t work, I do what my mother did - I dye them a dark color, like Navy, Claret, Purple, or Black. It works about 75% of the time, and if it doesn’t work, then it’s still an “at-home” (or in my case “in the yard”) shirt.
December 5th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
I can’t even keep my own white shirts clean. Plus, because I am brown-skinned, white never looks white on me unless it is fairly thick, so I too have a love/hate relationship with the white shirt. Why, just the other day a bee-yoo-tiful Ralph Lauren white tuxedo shirt was screaming at me, “I’ll look good on you, I promise! Just take me home!” and I almost did. Almost. I had forgotten about it until now.
Must. Resist. Tuxedo. Shirt.
December 5th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
White shirts often turn into winter undershirts at our house. The sleeves generally look okay, no matter what the kids have gotten on the front. Pop a short-sleeved t-shirt over it, and they still get a little bit of wear out of them without looking sloppy.
Since instituting this practice, I’ve gotten way too lazy for laundry alchemy. I’m not even sure that I have bleach in the laundry area anymore.
December 6th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
I recommend the Clorox bleach pens. They have the advantage of requiring just-before-washing use, so you don’t have to worry about treating the stain asap, you just treat before you wash.
My kids have to wear red, white, or blue shirts to school. They all favor red, but next favorite is white. The two younger ones will not wear blue shirts no matter what, so I don’t even buy them anymore, just red and white. For the little guy, I’m seriously considering all red next year, since he’d prefer it, and I don’t care.
The joys of the dress code…
I also have to say… the only time I care that my kids’ school-clothes are perfectly stain-free is on picture day. They get dirty every day. As long as the clothes are clean and well-fitting (and according to the dress code), I’m good with ‘em, a stain here or there isn’t going to kill them or me. At the same time, though, I realize that my kids are generally very easy on their clothes, and if they have a paint, ink, or chocolate milk incident, I’ve been lucky enough to get it out with pretreating with Shout or Tide, or using the bleach pen on whites. If my kids routinely got huge stains that wouldn’t come out on their clothes, I don’t know what I’d do.