Husband #1 is a complex individual.

I am kidding, he isn’t that complex, but when he sets his mind on something, there is no changing it. When Syms the suit store closed, he experienced a real loss. 1. He couldn’t shop with mommy for their annual Syms outing anymore, and 2. The place closed! Gone! Like it never existed! The home of the $50 really nice suit (really nice being a relative term) has vanished. What is a cheap boy from Monsey do to?

I will tell you, he will wear those pants until they can no longer be worn in public anymore. He got up from the shabbos table last week and the chuckling and giggling began. “Um. Honey, you have got some holes in your pants..” We all had a good laugh and then I, the doting wife, had to take the pants back to the cleaners because husband #1 assured me that he had just brought them back to be fixed. No, you are wrong, that isn’t what happened — which is probably why he sent me!!! $36 later, they are ready to patch up his pants and do something about the crotch situation, which is thinning faster than his hair.

Poor husband #1, 47 years old and he’s walking around with patchy pants. So we decided to go to the suit store. Son #1 and son # 2 and even son #3 have done very well there, and came out looking very handsome. What could possibly go wrong with their father?

Husband #1 came out looking like a chasidic pimp. Apparently, electric blue is the new black. “Please help me,” he pleaded. And this was my response. “Darling, one day I am not going to be around to help you anymore because I will have gone to the great beyond, so you are going to need to learn how to buy a suit for yourself.” That didn’t go over so well. What also didn’t go over so well was that the one suit I thought was nice was $500 and Husband #1 would rather sell me into white slavery than spend that much money on a suit!!!

So we left the suit store empty-handed. Husband #1 said, “I guess we will just have to go to Macy’s to find something.” And I muttered, “Good luck to you, sir, there is no way I am going on that mission.” Just tell me why there are some men who are able to shop for themselves and some who are not. Don’t most women shop for themselves? It just doesn’t seem fair that if I have been doing this guy’s laundry and food shopping and cooking and cleaning for almost 22½ years, why do I have do go shopping with him for suits?

That is why I have decided that with my onset of possible menopause has come my decision to just say no. Perhaps that, too, is a side effect, along with no sleep, crazy mood swings, and hot flashes.

I am just going with that.

The only time I ever truly felt like I had to help husband #1 occurred at a bar mitzvah many years ago. He was wearing his very favorite Syms suit, and we were at a hotel for the bar mitzvah weekend. It was Friday night, and the room was set up beautifully, with candles and desserts. Husband #1 was leaning against a table, speaking with some people, when we started to smell smoke. We didn’t quite know where it was coming from, until suddenly I noticed that the smoke and the smell were coming from husband #1. He had leaned against a candle and set his beautiful suit on fire. Yup, you can’t make this stuff up.

“Honey,” I screamed, “You are on fire, and not in a good way!!!!”

Fortunately, we were able to extinguish the blaze, leaving his jacket with a lovely hole in it. Which, of course, a few days later, we had patched up, because he wasn’t getting rid of this suit. And you cannot even notice the patch, unless I am in a particularly cranky mood and I decide to point it out to anyone who might be interested (of which, there are very, very few…)

The moral of this story is that some people like to spend money on clothes and some people like to spend money on the Direct TV Football package, and you cannot judge either decision. Unless, of course, you are walking around town with a huge hole in your pants.

Banji Ganchrow can get to any mall in Bergen County without going on a highway. This is just another special skill that her mother taught her.