<p>You know those beautifully organized closets where all the clothes neatly hang on identical hangers spaced precisely the same distance apart?</p>
<p>That’s not our closet.</p>
<p>You know those closets in the movies where incredibly rich people push some button and clothes rotate in a circle like at the dry cleaners?</p>
<p>That’s not our closet.</p>
<p>You know the closets that are so enormous that you could comfortably house the Anheuser-Busch draft horses alongside all the neatly organized clothes and still have enough extra space to rent the closet out on Airbnb?</p>
<p>That’s not our closet either.</p>
<p>You know the comic gag where the guy opens a closet door, and clothes, shoes, a bowling ball and boxes of old tax returns and Christmas decorations fall out on top of him?</p>
<p>Don’t make me spell it out.</p>
<p>Our closet is a mess, which is why I enrolled in Hanger Management. This Hanger Management is clothing-based, not to be confused with the other Hanger Management, which is food-based and deals with people who get so hungry they get angry (hangry). My Hanger Management is for those of us who come unhinged confronting a giant ball of tangled wire hangers.</p>
<p>What pushed me over the edge was hearing that most people wear 20 percent of their clothes 80 percent of the time.</p>
<p>How could that possibly be true? All that shopping for nothing?</p>
<p>The way to find out is to turn all your clothes hangers backward. Then, after you wear something, rehang it with the hanger hanging correctly.</p>
<p>I’ve discovered that it’s extremely awkward to have your hangers hanging backward. I also discovered that the 20/80 estimate is highly probable.</p>
<p>Being that I am an overachiever, not content to simply monitor my own clothing, I informally monitored the husband’s wardrobe choices as well. His numbers came in at roughly 2/98. He wears about 2 percent of his clothes 98 percent of the time. Of course, he doubted my math, so I issued the “Don’t Wear the Same Clothes You Tend to Wear Six Days a Week Challenge” and he took it.</p>
<p>He broke out a different pair of pants and shirt, prompting one of the girls to look him up and down and say, “Where are you going?”</p>
<p>Case closed.</p>
<p>Flipping all your hangers not only shows which articles of clothing you most often wear, but what colors you favor.</p>
<p>I apparently like black. That was not a surprise. Black dress, black pants, black shirt, black sweater — I’m good to go.</p>
<p>Granted, I’ve heard people say that black is depressing, but I’ve also heard people say that black is not depressing, it is poetic.</p>
<p>Criticize a woman’s wardrobe because she likes black</p>
<p>There’s a very good chance she’ll give you a whack.</p>
<p>In any case, I’ve been purging the closet and it looks good. Or at least better. The clothes on hangers aren’t perfectly aligned and uniform, but then neither are we.</p>
