Remember when Desi would say that to
Lucy? (Showing my age!)
Let’s
start with my HOLE-y SHIRTS. A couple of years ago I began to notice that
some of my shirts & sweaters (mostly shirts) had 2-5 tiny holes…and they were always in the same general area around my
belly button. At first I was just
aggravated but then as I found more and more hole-y shirts I also became
flabbergasted. What in the world was
going on? Before I knew it I had had to
discard more than a few very good shirts and two or three sweaters.
I
began to research (via Google) to try and solve this mystery. Lo & behold! I found that I was only one among MANY that
had the same problem but yet no one could come up with a conclusive cause or a solution. At least I wasn’t in the boat by myself! I
also found 2 friends and a niece were having the same problem!
Some
of the many thoughts about this “hole” situation were:
*abrasion from car seat belt
BUT!
I had traded cars and still discovered new holes
*rough place on counter top or sink area
BUT!
I went over every surface where I knew I leaned against it…and
I mean I went over it like a detective
looking for clues to a serial
murderer….and found nothing
*a mysterious little bug that….warning! this is yucky!...liked the smell of your belly button
BUT!
I keep my belly button clean and dust bunny free
*moths
BUT!
do you really think a group of moths would all get together &
say, “Now let’s eat holes in this gal’s
clothes but let’s only go for the
belly-button area”??????? I don’t think so! And besides…I took
everything out of that closet &
washed or dry cleaned EVERYTHING…
and also fumigated the room (just in
case)!
*cheap fabrics
BUT! I had it to happen with some rather expensive items
Absolutely
nothing seemed to fix the problem. Well,
after discarding at least 20 (if not more) perfectly good shirts & sweaters
(both expensive brands like from Talbots and less expensive from places like Old
Navy), I thought my problem was solved😊 For the past few months, NO NEW HOLES! I was elated!
But this week the wind was taken out of my sails because I found holes
in two basically new shirts. One I
bought recently from Old Navy; the other earlier in the summer from
TJMaxx. And by the way…why doesn’t my
husband get holes in his shirts????
Evidently I like stripes A LOT!
As
I was researching solutions yet again today I came across an article you can
read here: http://www.cleverly.me/t-shirt-holes/ . (sorry but I can't get the link to work!) It basically gives 5
different possible reasons for the #@$#% holes, but I’m not really buying any
of them because of the exact reasons I gave in the earlier part of this
post. I’m just still not convinced.
I
also came across a product that is “supposed” to be the cure-all for the
problem, but I’m not buying it…literally or figuratively. It’s these button covers called HOLE' (hole-ay) that you are supposed to put over
your buttons/snaps on jeans & pant fronts.
(Reviews say they are hard to get on & off.) But... (yes another BUT!), I have had holes
in tops that I wear only with pants that are slip-ons…no buttons or snaps in sight.
https://holebuttoncover.com/
I
don’t really know what I can do about this problem, but if anyone discovers a
cure-all I’ll be first in line to buy it.
* * *
* * * *
NOW….on
to those demonic shoes! Well, that’s just my term for them because
they too have given me the devil in the past year.
A better term would be crumbling shoes. Have you
ever been walking down the street or in the mall (or in my friend’s case the
airport) and you look down and see all these little black pieces of “something”
following you like Hansel & Gretel’s trail of crumbs???? If so, you have had crumbling shoes. (As if crumbled potato chips or crumbled
cookies aren’t bad enough!)
*Disclaimer: these are not my shoes...borrowed from internet!
Or have you
gotten all dressed, ready to go, but have to quickly put on matching shoes
before running out the door….only to pull the shoes out of the box and realize
they have disintegrated???
Yep! I’ve had both situations happen…not
pleasant.
Again
let me say I have had this problem with both expensive brands and less
expensive ones. And I’m not in this boat
alone either. GOOGLE “crumbling shoes” or
“disintegrating shoes” and you’ll see what I mean! Many folks have dealt with gooey,
delaminating, or cracked shoe bottoms including Clarks, Crocs, and other "comfort" shoes.
But
there is an explanation for this phenomenon…just no real solution!!!!
The
basic culprit is polyurethane that is inside the soles & heels of shoes
(and sometimes upper parts). The
polyurethane degrades through a process known as hydrolysis. It also seems that storing shoes for a long
period of time aids the process. I have for
years stored my shoes in plastic shoeboxes (all nicely labeled, thank you😊) but now I’m wondering if that is the best
thing to do. (They sure look nice &
neat all stacked on my shelves though!!)
One
of the main (maybe only) solutions to the issue of crumbling shoes is to WEAR
THEM FREQUENTLY. Seems that wearing them
squeezes all the chemicals in there together & this slows down the
breaking-down process. However, I have
read in several places that many shoe manufacturers say we should only expect 4
to 5 years of wear! Are you kidding
me??? I still have my BE-BOPS (saddle oxfords) from high
school and that was….well, more than a few years ago! My problem is I have sooooo many pairs of
shoes, by the time I get around to wearing all of them the first ones will have
disintergrated!!! (But my shoe inventory
is a post for another day.)
A
good article to read about the shoe problem is here:
I
love clothes & shoes in particular, but it sure is disheartening to go to
your closet to look for a favorite shirt or just-the-right pair of shoes for an
outfit only to find they are no longer wearable. I’m beginning to think it’s true what we
often hear: They just don’t make things like they used to. After all, right now in my closet I have 2 pairs
of my 90-year-old mother’s high heels that she wore many, many years ago and
they look like they just came from the store!
So….have
you had either of these problems? I’d
love to hear about it if you have. And if you find a long-term solution for either situation, bottle & sell it cause you'll end up with more money than if you'd hit that billion dollar lottery...and I'll be your first customer:)
