But I will treasure the receipts forever

It seems like only yesterday he was learning to tie a tie for the very first time.   

But in fact, it was about three months ago and that tie? So last week.  So boys department. This time we are headed to menswear. The grown up stuff. At grown up prices.

But it's got to be perfect. This isn't some middle school orchestra event we are preparing for. This is the high school homecoming dance.  You only do this once right?  Or at least no more than once a year for the next four years. Not counting college.

He's got a date. I've got a credit card and all the fashion know-how my Esquire subscription can impart. Boy, Esquire is almost friendly as we prowl the aisles, trying on sport coats, pairing ties with dress shirts.  He favors a black jacket, red shirt combination.  Gangsterish, I tell him. "Cool," he says, reaching for a fedora to complete the look. "No," I say. "Not cool."

We settle on a burgundy shirt and a dotted tie. He has black pants at home, so the bill comes to only about a week's groceries.  When we get home, we discover last year's pants don't fit and his date will be wearing pink. The burgundy shirt and tie combination is suddenly all wrong, we are back in menswear and we realize we need a belt as well. I have enough receipts in my purse to kindle a reasonably-sized fire. But the memories - priceless.

I mean, just look at him:

 

Okay, this is actually someone else's son. When I told my son I wanted to take a picture, he reacted as if I had asked him to save me a dance. Which killed me, because he looked so handsome and grown up in the grocery money clothes. 

At least I imagine he did. He snuck out to a friend's house where they were all meeting up before the dance to take pictures.  For their Facebook pages. 

Here is the picture I got:

Comments

[Executive Suburbanite]

I'm impressed that he even wanted to go to the dance, with a date (same one?) and let you buy him a suit. My Giant, because there was a debate tournament and he absolutely HAD to have a suit or he'd fail, allowed me to take him shopping. I took him to Goodwill. There was no way in hell I was spending money on him, he'd wear it twice (for two debate tournaments) and then throw it away if he didn't outgrow it first. Pants, jacket, shirt, tie, $19.60. He would not let me take a picture, but a friend of mine got one and it's now on my cell phone.

[Suburban Kamikaze]

Fine. You got the whole ensemble for what I spent on a tie. For a 14-year-old. But someday, when we're both old ladies living in Key West on your savings, plus whatever Dianne can make selling produce from the back yard, I will be able to look back at my receipts and imagine how handsome my son probably looked.

[nthnglsts]

Wow. I'm going to have to sell more fruit if you are going to go for $19 ties. That's our old age Mojito money you are throwing around there!

[Paulita]

I never knew the executive suburbanite was so frugal. Maybe you should start your own blog. The frugal executive. Grace will let us take pictures tomorrow. Aaah. The beauty of a daughter.

[Audubon Ron]

Well F me backwards and sideways and backwards one more for good measure. To think of all the times I HAD to let my mother poke and prod and dress me like a Ken doll and lean me up somewhere for that perfect picture, oh, and the Mutha Fing clothes she made I had to wear like the blue striped terry cloth bellbottoms with the elastic waist and no fly and the blue terry shirt she made that barely was long enough to touch the elastic waist, that whole ensemble that was the exact one she made my little brother and the 300 looks of total satisfaction on her face as she turned her attention from the windshield to the back seat to review her wonderful handy crafted work on her two sons on our way to Pensacola, Florida as my brother and sat there looking like Dustin Hoffman in Papillion. It was at that very moment I realized I could not bear the look of pain on her face if I refused wearing it. It was at that moment, on that day, I vowed I would become a Gigolo. My brother on the other hand decided to vow to become homeless, which he did.

[Suburban Kamikaze]

My mother cruelly allowed me to follow my own fashion whims. I went to my senior prom in a dress that looks like it came from the JCPenney sleepwear collection.

[jean]

See? This is what happens when you have a boy. My son is the same way. (And if he doesn't stop growing I may have to get a second mortgage.) My friends who have daughters are my only source of information and photos!