Thursday, November 13, 2008

Zip On, Zip Off

At the thrift shop where I volunteer, I'll occasionally come across a sleeve of fabric with one half of a zipper along the top. Here is a photo of one:


Of course, being the mother of a boy, I recognize this fabric for exactly what it is: a pants leg that has lost its pants. I have two questions for you then. Whyever would someone donate just the pants leg without the remainder of the pants? Did they think we might have a table of pants that look like this, waiting for another pants leg to show up?


Now in theory, it is a very interesting design. Boys might be cool in the morning, but as they run and get all sweaty, zip off the (as Wm calls them) "pants sleeve" and voilĂ , you have shorts. In theory. In practice, you go to pick your son up at the neighbor's, where you left him wearing pants. He is now in shorts and has no idea where the missing parts of his pants have gone. Or worse yet, he knows where one of the pants sleeves are located. No doubt, the other has already migrated to our local thrift store, looking for a pants to zip on to.

Or, maybe it's gone looking for other things that seem to lose their way in our house. For example, scissors. I must have some one hundred pair somewhere in the house. Needles (watch where you sit!). Lately, hair dryers seem to have wandered off. We have three. My hair air-dried this evening and looks it. Pens (where do they all go? I buy them by the truckload!) No doubt I have elves stealing things. I hear them running in the drop ceiling in the basement. Or could that be a colony of mice preparing for winter?

I've set traps, feeling the mother tiger justification to kill in the name of protecting my family from mouse-born disease and disgust. William was quite concerned when he heard me mention that it sounded like a whole "colony". I'm not sure what monster that conjures in his mind, but he won't go in the basement for fear that the colony will get him.

Notes:
Clay (rooster) lingers. He doesn't get better or worse. Perhaps I should get him one of those little doggy wheelchairs to make him mobile except, oh yeah, chickens only have two legs. He still couldn't move.

I had the pleasure of turning on the new solar fence charger yesterday as the neighbor's rowdy and unmannerly horses leaned on our electric wire. Shocked the crap out of them! Yeah!

5 comments:

pita-woman said...

So laughing at the pants sleeve segment. My husband owns several pairs in that style, but I don't think he's lost any of his "sleeves" as yet.

Jenn Jilks said...

I know what can happen! As a teacher I often found that the boys would remove one section, then, they would change pants. Just before parent-teacher interviews the custodian or someone would spread the clothing out in the hall, teachers would take the kids to view the cloths. We would have reams of clothing that the young boys would not claim.

The school moms who volunteer would pack up the clothing and send them to the 2nd hand store. :-)

Kristina said...

Jenny Jill-that's hilarious.

I have another problem with these pants. For some reason, they're my kids favorite pants, winter or summer. Frequently, they zip the bottoms off during the summer and leave them in their closet. The tops get washed over and over and fade, while the bottoms stay nice and new. Now, they can never be reattached.

BUT, these are great for vacations during spring and fall. It means only packing one set of pants.

Robin said...

How timely a post! Laughed out loud over the pants cum shorts thing...one more thing to drive a parent insane maybe?

Our girl Mugs could never come home with shoes...could not keep shoes/flip flops on that girl to save our life. She's now almost 20 and still won't spend over $5 on shoes because she invariably loses one within the first 24 hours.

Went to cut open a veggie packet last night...no scissors. Went to endorse a check 3 minutes later...the pen that was RIGHT there left.

Emptied the dryer...have two socks mourning for their mates which have apparently run off my my errant pen, scissors and pant sleeves to become bedding for the mice trying to escape the increasingly cold weather.

Crap, where are my stamps? I just bought a roll!

Junosmom said...

Pita - so there is hope - once they are older, they won't lose their pants legs.

Jenny Jill: ...where someone like me would unpack them and wonder what I'm going to do with all these pants sleeves? Maybe I can give them to PITA to make into a quilt.

Kristina: You're right on the packing, and it is good for the weather we're having right now. But I never thought about the fading from not washing them together. Huh. I'll have to insist on finding all sleeves.

Robin: I can relate. I think we have a poltergeist. Or it is my adopted invisible Chinese son, Not Me, again. He takes things, you know.

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