Last time I sat down to write a post, I had good intentions of writing about the transition I've recently made from hand-me-down's to hand-me-up's. Instead, I took a bit of a U-turn and ended up telling a story about cat-heads. Let's get back to hand-me-up's.
One of my mother's friends from nursing school was a nice lady named Mrs. May. Every year or two, Mrs. May would pay a visit. Mrs. May had a couple of kids who were a few years older than me. One was a boy. I used to look forward to Mrs. May's visits. It wasn't because she was bringing her son along for the trip. In fact, I don't think I ever met him. No, I looked forward to those visits because it meant I might be getting some hand-me-down's.
Based on the clothes that showed up with Mrs. May, her son appeared to be quite a bit taller than me. That didn't matter. Remember, it was the late 1970's. Rolling up your jeans was fashionable (I think). I'd tear through the bag of hand-me-down's that Mrs. May left behind, grab the jeans, put them on, cinch my belt, roll the cuffs up a couple of times, and loudly announce "Yes, they fit perfectly." Without those hand-me-down's, I don't think I would ever have had a pair of jeans, at least not until I started using my paper route money to buy my own clothes.
I know most people probably don't like to wear other people's used clothes. When I was growing up, I never had that problem. And, I still don't.
You see, a couple weeks back, Nick was cleaning out his closet. Whenever that happens around here, we end up with a pile of clothes in our bedroom closet. Kim then bags them up and off they go to AmVets. This time, before she could get Nick's old clothes in their bags, I walked into our closet and saw a huge pile of clothes just sitting there on the floor. "Hmmm," I thought to myself, "Some of those clothes don't look that bad. Nick's bigger than me now. If these clothes no longer fit him, I bet they might fit me."
The next thing I knew, I was standing there in my underwear, trying on Nick's old shorts, t-shirts, and sweatshirts. It was like Christmas morning (if you spend Christmas morning in your underwear, that is). After going through everything, I ended up with four pairs of shorts, a bunch of shirts, and a really nice Bucknell sweatshirt. Yes, the shorts are a couple years out of style. No, I don't care. I'm wearing my hand-me-up's.
Just think. In a couple more years, I can do it all over again with Jay's clothes. I can't wait.
This is where the magic happens.
