Tuesday’s gone (with the wind). Had my two-week Lasik appointment today: my vision is still 20/15 and my eyes are supposedly “healing nicely.” They feel a lot better, with some occasional dryness and irritation – but I’ve still got minimal problems at night with halos and glare (although it’s already markedly better than it was last week). My new eyes are great, and I love them.
The other day we got one of those “put your old clothes in a bag on the curb for charity” fliers stuffed in our doorjamb. When those fliers come, Sharaun always decides to “go through” my closet and give away my clothes. I don’t know why God chose to give women this instinct, this notion that they have an idea what clothes men should and shouldn’t keep. What worse is, they always seem to target the items I love dearly. Shirts she deems “dingy” and “old-man looking” are the shirts that fit me best, don’t bind on the shoulders, have plenty of “skirt” to make for strong tucking, and have no pokies or scratchies to speak of. So here we are, me sitting on the couch in the living room while she brings out handfuls of clothes-laden hangers to parade by me, not really asking as much as telling me what I do and don’t wear.
“You never wear this one,” she says, hoisting a blue t-shirt into the air for my inspection. “I wear that all the time,” I say, “Just look at the paint stains on the front, that’s a good painting shirt.”
“You got this in college!,” she proclaims, as if clothes bought in college are things of evil. “So what,” I say, “It’s still a good shirt, fits me fine, and I like it.”
“Why are those jeans in the donate pile?,” I demand, “Those are the only jeans that truly fit me well all over.” “They’re so old, you have all these other jeans that look so much better.” “But I hate those other jeans,” I protest, “The legs are all fat and bell-bottomy… I hate that.” She rebuts, “It’s not called ‘bell-bottom,’ it’s called ‘flared leg’ and it’s the only kind of jeans that are stylish.” “Well I don’t want to be stylish then,” I say, “I like the legs of my jeans to fit around my ankles, not swing back and forth as I walk.” She fires back, “You know you’re talking about ‘tapered leg,’ right? No one wears tapered leg jeans anymore, not even cowboys.” “So what,” I say, “I want to wear them. I’ll single-handedly bring them back into style.” At this point she’s getting angry.
“Here are a pair of jeans with the tags still on them, you probably never even tried them on,” she begins, turning a brand new pair of denim over for inspection. “I did try them on,” I challenge, “Remember, at Christmas? They were all twisty in the hips, I asked you to return them.” “No, you’re thinking of another pair – you never even touched these,” she maintains. Apparently, I am not capable of being able to recognize my own clothes, as all my assertions about certain items are challenged on the basis that I’m “thinking of a different one” or am just plain wrong. Now my answers are beginning to reflect my frustration.
“What about these,” she asks as she puts yet another pair of jeans forward. “Those are too big,” I reply curtly. “What do you mean by ‘too big?,'” she asks. “What do I mean by… well… the size of my lower body is proportionally smaller than the amount of fabric that Levis decided to use when manufacturing those particular pants. Therefore, there is more actual jean than there is me.” She stops me before I can go into a brief discourse on relative volumes and capacities, holding her hand in the air as a silent “stop,” signalling that my humorous approach has come across as intended and she understands.
Eventually, because I am so incapable of recognizing and identifying which of my own clothes fit and which don’t, the whole exercise turns into a 11pm “try this on so I can see” marathon. I hate trying things on, loathe it – and she knows this. I don’t want to try things on right now, I’m hot, and I don’t want to robe and disrobe over and over to prove to you what I know is true. It’s true, you know, I’m a naturally hot human being – maintaining a core temperature that I’m convinced is several degrees higher than most everyone else. This rationale, however, is not flying.
“Hot is your excuse for everything,” she says. “You’re too hot to try on clothes; too hot to hold the baby; too hot for everything.” While this is true, I am often “too hot” to do things comfortably, in the middle of this moment of shared frustration hearing her say it comes off as the funniest thing to me. “Hot is your excuse for everything” sounds freaking hilarious to me, and start cracking up. “Hot is my excuse for everything,” I chuckle.
Luckily, the whole thing degenerated into sweet, sweet lovin’ on a pile of soon-to-be-donated clothing items (sorry beggars, but hey, can you really afford to be choosers?). Nah… I made the sex part up; but we did end on a happy note and a respectable three bags of clothes for the less-fortunate.
Goodnight.
PS – I added some friends’ pictures to the gallery for this weekend’s camping trip, check ’em out at the beginning of the original set, or get them sorted by date via this link.