Clothing should come with a ticker tape

Shopping can be fun for many reasons. It can be a distraction from whatever is going on in your life. It can instantly boost your self esteem when you find the perfect pair of jeans (which happens like once every ten years for this set of hips). Or it can induce the I-just-got-this-super-cute-outfit-on-clearance high.

But once you get home and remove the tags from your new purchases, the ticking time bomb starts.

The first time you wear your new sweater, you feel great about yourself- must be the endorphins of loving that new sweater so much that you suddenly love yourself a little bit more than usual. You feel a little thinner, a little prettier thanks to that new purchase.

Then the next time you wear it, it's still super cute and you love it.

But with each wear of the new item, the high rubs off a little more eventually leaving you with just another sweater in your closet.

In recent years I've really toned down my shopping, which has left me with a closet full of I've-already-worn-this-a-million-trillion-times pieces of clothing.

But what happened to the this-is-oh-so-cute feeling I used to get when wearing that sweater?

It's almost like the clothing has in expiration date- like it only gets so many uses of you really liking the item, before it fades into the sea of my I-don't-have-anything-to-wear wardrobe.

Or it can become a test of your memory like: when was the last time I saw her and what was I wearing because I don't want to wear the same thing again kinda test.

As bad as my memory is, I've actually saved a section dedicated to this.

I have very few pieces of clothing that I really like so when I have an event (which is pretty much anything other than a normal workday), I wear one of a select handful of things. But then it becomes a new battle of I-can't-wear-this-today-because-I-wore-this-the-last-time-I-saw-her or the special event battle of I-have-way-too-many-pictures-wearing-this-dress-people-will-think-I-don't-own-anything-else battle.

I've tried to get crafty in postponing the inevitable of my new super cute sweater is now just another sweater dilemma.

When purchasing a new piece of clothing, I like to take it out on a few test runs before truly committing to the purchase. If you see me wearing something new, chances are the tags are still on it. In fact, the tags will stay on for the first few wearings of my newest item for two reasons:

#1: the longer the tags stay on, the longer I can delay the ticking time bomb of getting bored with the item.

#2. I find myself wearing the new item a couple of times but then realize that I don't really love it as much as I thought I did, so now I get to take it back to the store and either get my money back or a new item to start the cycle all over again.

It's really a win-win for me. Not so much for the store or the fact that I shouldn't be to doing it but hey, I've already openly admitted to being selfish.