New Year’s Day in New England and it is bitterly cold and very windy. The peel your face off if you are not careful, mind numbing type of cold. The you could be wearing ten layers of clothing and still be cold kind of cold. So I decide to stay in and do some e-shopping. Cold weather for me means L. L. Bean. Good stuff and they stand by their product. I type in their address and off we go. First stop: gloves. I am notorious for ripping, tearing, losing, somehow ending up with two right hand gloves type of glove owner. Needless to say, I use my pockets a lot. But we are in the middle of a cold spell with no end in sight and it is tough driving a car with your hands in your pockets, so off I go looking for a new pair of gloves. The men’s Carrabassett gloves look awesome in brown and gray, are incredibly warm, but their $89.95 price tag forces me to move on. The GTX PrimaLoft has great reviews, but it’s got all these straps with pulls and things dangling from it, looks pretty complicated, big and puffy, and I really want them for going out and besides, I like leather gloves. So the hunt continues. Finally, deerskin gloves, cue angels, ahhhh! Light, warm, my size and on sale. Boom! I’m in. Drop it into the cart and hmmmmm. It’s still pretty cold out and the weather guy just said we will be getting an “impactful” snow storm later on this week. Well, that’s a blizzard where I come from, so lets go look at sweaters.
First up, Cardigans. While I love the theory of the cardigan, in actual practice, at least for me, it falls rather short. I try them on and think, “I look pretty cool.” Open, buttoned, sleeves up/sleeves down, nice. However, when I try one on in the store when my wife is present, she heckles me unmercifully. “Looks good for a man in his nineties,” “Do you want to be buried in that thing?” “You look homeless.” That kind of stuff. Needless to say I don’t own any cardigans. Next.
Ah, the fisherman sweater. I love them. Big, bulky, warm and good looking. It must be good looking because that is what I was wearing when I met my wife. At least that is what it was according to my wife. That was over thirty years ago. She also remembers the color and pattern of the accompanying shirt I wore. I couldn’t tell you what I wore yesterday with a gun to my head. Glad I didn’t wear a cardigan when I met her. But here is the problem, the big, bulky warm and good looking fisherman sweater only comes in that off white, creamy color. Which shouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that every time I have gotten a sweater in that color one of two things are going to happen. I will either get a coffee stain or a tomato sauce stain on the sweater. Guaranteed. And just wait one second. Fishing is a dirty, sweaty smelly, way to make a living. Why the hell did they pick off white for the color of their sweaters which screams stay clean when we all know that is next to impossible?
I could be wearing an apron over a bib inside a level A hazmat suit, survive a breakout of ebola and yet sure as the sun will come up tomorrow I will somehow get a stain on my cream colored sweaters. Never fails. Last year I tempted fate, foolishly thinking that I perhaps grew out of that phase. I bought a few moderately priced cream colored sweaters. Sadly, they too succumbed to coffee stains. What’s worse though is wearing a cream colored sweater and not knowing it has a stain on it. I would be halfway to work, look down and sure enough old coffee stain. Shit! Go to work with a coffee stain and suffer humiliation or go home and change. Go home, change and call in late. That damn highway, always accidents. Yep. Truth is out.
V-necks? Nope. Never liked them. Ever. Next.
There it is; the Double L Cotton Sweater but, of course, they don’t have my size. Big sigh. I’m beginning to feel discouraged. It’s not getting any warmer and I can’t find a sweater. I’m ready to cut my losses with just the gloves and go look for a sweater on the REI site, when I take one more look and there it is. The Classic Raggwool sweater. Charcoal grey. Perfect for hiding coffee or spaghetti sauce stains. Crew neck. One hundred percent lambswool. All the bells and whistles. Free shipping. American Express and it’s on its way. I check the email and confirmation and, oh shit, I didn’t take the discount. A nice chat with customer service fixes my stupidity, and it looks like the gloves and sweater will be here Friday; just in time for the impactful snow event that the weather people are talking up. But, I’ll be warm in my new duds. Sipping coffee and eating lasagna. Happy New Year and thanks for reading this.
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