The Ties That Bind


My husband loves neckties. Loves 'em.


If I had to guess, I'd say he has about 70 ties.

Once I took it upon myself to help relieve him of some of his rarely worn specimens. Donated them to our thrift store. Just my luck, he popped in at the store the next day and saw his ties lined up on the wall with price tags.

I bought them all back.

Yesterday morning, Mike got dressed for an interview on the 12 o'clock local news. All except for a tie. Which one, of the 70 ties hanging on the pole of his closet door, would strike the right balance of understated style and classy professionalism, not too bland and not too busy for the camera?

Evidently none from this pile.


And none of these.

We narrowed the choices to these.

He tried on most of them, and just when we were about to give up, Flutterbug found a brand new necktie under all the rest - plastic hanger thingy still intact - and handed it to her father.

As he tied it around his neck, Flutterbug and I circled slowly, critically. Yup, that'd do. With a quick glance at his watch, Mike said, "It'll have to do," and headed down the stairs and out the door.

Suddenly Flutterbug and I panicked. The tie didn't really match the suit and shirt! She grabbed a handful of other choices and I ran out to the car to stop Mike.

He said, "No way," he did not need to take any ties with him - he'd take his chances, even if it wasn't his style and he didn't feel too confident about it. And off he went.

He did just fine, and the tie did, too.

Last night at church, while he was making announcements and talking about the day, sweet Miss Taffie assured him, "The camera didn't add 10 pounds like they say, Pastor Mike! You looked just the same."

"Well," he responded, "that's because I sweated off 10 pounds trying to pick out a tie."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You guys need a new house with a special walk-in-closet just for Mike's ties!!!

Brenda Covert said...

I can't believe he didn't want to wear the Coca-Cola tie - that'd by MY favorite! hehehe

I think I've got a bag of ties saved around here if Mike wants to stop by and claim them on one of his trips to town. ;-) I had thought the kids and I would make snakes out of them, but they've outgrown that type of crafting. (the kids, not the ties)

Hey, Mike and the report had the same style of suit, lapels and all! Did you notice?

Anonymous said...

Awww! He did great!
I once cleaned out my husband's clothes (unbeknownst to him) and put them in the trunk of my car to bring to Goodwill. Wouldn't you know he opened the trunk and saw his leather jacket from high school right on top. Busted! He said, "Are you taking my jacket to get it cleaned?" So I had to take it to the drycleaners. I couldn't tell him the real reason it was in there!