A WORN OUT SWEAT SHIRT

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worn out sweat shirt

image courtesy of photobucket.com

REPOST FROM AUGUST 2010

What happened to the average I-don’t-care-what-I-wear-on-Saturday people? They’re either gone or they’re hiding.

This was a typical Saturday for me with a few exceptions. Work in the morning hit the gym early and take care of whatever falls into the”his” category of responsibility.

I don’t dress like Frank Sinatra any day of the week and I’m the polar opposite on Saturday. This is the day that society has deemed acceptable for a person to wear worn out, discolored, wrinkled, outdated or just plain ugly clothing. At least it used to be. Come to think of it, I guess I’m probably the only one at the gym with  holes in my clothes nowadays… Whenever they changed this code they didn’t inform me of it.

I went straight home from the gym, got my wife’s much past due for an oil change car and took it to the “lame lube”. (We don’t pull out into the desert to change oil anymore, I did get that memo) They were even slower and more inept that day than usual. I didn’t have time to let them try to figure out how to reset the oil life percentage read out. My youngest daughter was at home waiting to be taken to her orientation at the library where she has volunteered to work on the weekends.

She is definitely a, “chip off the old block.” She loves books even more than I did when I was young. There is a possibility that she has read more books in her life than I have in mine. At any rate, we only had time for her to hop in the car and head straight to the library.

She was a little apprehensive about walking into the library by herself. She wanted me to walk her in. This, a job that she volunteered for without my wife or me coercing her into. I didn’t even know they had such positions. I thought you had to be middle-aged, wear glasses, wear your hair in a bun and have strong lungs to be able to say, “Shhhhhhhh”!

What do I know? I know enough to know that she needed to walk in alone and learn to be independent. “Please go in with me”! She pleaded. “Do you really want me to walk you in with holes in my shirt”? I responded, a perfect prop for the occasion. She started again, “I think y-“-RIP!!! I cut her off. Mid-sentence I reached over to my left shoulder and enlarged the size of the hole in my shirt… to ensure independence. “Okay, Dad.” She smiled as if to say, “That was a good one, Dad.” I finished with, “I’ll wait out her for a few minutes in case they need me and my ripped up clothes to sign anything.”

She walked briskly with intention in her steps, I know because I followed her at a distance. The library is adjacent to the mall and sometimes has some suspicious looking characters hanging around. You know, people with holes in their clothes and the like…

With one hour to kill, I stepped through the parking garage to the mall. I can count on one hand the times I’ve been to the mall by myself in the last two decades. I can count on the other hand the times I’ve been with my wife in that same time period.

To my surprise I was the only one walking through the mall with a sweatshirt on that had noticeable sweat discoloration and holes. Doesn’t anyone else wear their old favorites that should have been thrown away years ago except me?

While discovering a $9.99 baggy shorts sale rack, I got a text from my daughter. It read, “It’s getting ready to start, I think it’s going to be really good”! – “I don’t need you to come in.” I texted back, “Good job girl, I knew you could do it”!

Off in the distance, in my mind’s eye, I see and taste that bitter-sweet day of my little girl’s independence…

This worn out old green worn out sweat shirt soaks up the tears quite well.

I think I’ll keep it for a while…..