Eating Like a Child

My friend Goktuk’s favorite shirt advertises “How to Eat Like a Child.” His youngest son performed in that play as a high school freshman. The son outgrew that shirt but it fits Goktuk. He has stained it with food over the years but the mess just looks like the rest of the graphics describing the play’s title. Most of his nice shirts have stains because he wears them to social functions where food is served. Actually that is the indirect cause. The primary reason for the stains is that he eats like me. But he also forgets to change clothes when he decides to paint or garden. Some people do not organize their closets. But those who do usually have a system to arrange by color, style, or season. Goktuk organizes his closet by how stained the clothes are. He has one cool dress white shirt that somehow got tie dyed with light green streaks around and just below the collar. No one notices the odd green coloring except me because my wife opened my eye for good fashion. Goktuk dares not to share closet strategies with his wife lest she relocate the far end of the rack directly to the rag pile. He is relieved when his stained clothes wear out with holes or rips because then he can toss them without feeling wasteful. He invented his closet strategy so he could quickly find the worst clothes for messy chores or for when quarantined at home in a pandemic. His orderly system prevents him from hurriedly grabbing a filthy shirt for the wrong occasion. Except earlier this month when he was rushing to Church. He hates it when his wife randomly hangs up articles of clothing in his closet.