Twenty-five cents. That's what I paid for this pair of shorts in a 1991 garage sale. They were pre-worn, pre-softened, pre-stretched, and pre-faded. Actually, they were pre-thrown away, and technically pre-recycled by the time I got them.I really liked how they were faded and how soft the old 100% cotton felt. I wore them nearly every day of a month-long van trip west with my family, that summer. We drove all over Kingdom Come on that vacation. We showed the kids a lot of their country.This included Lincoln's tomb, every buffalo and snake ranch by the side of the road, San Diego, Disney Land, and Dodge City, Kansas. I was in my traveling shorts for most of that time. As the driver, I enjoyed comfort, and if I spilled something.......oh well. Cotton dries quickly.
Since then, these shorts have been all over the United States, and into Canada, generally worn by moi as we drove, and since we drive nearly everywhere we go, you sort of have to get the picture of these soft, blue and white striped pants getting softer and more faded with each washing and wearing. (I admit that I've left them home when we've been cruising.)
I noticed, a couple of years ago, that the edges by the bottom hem had totally worn out. That leaves the hem a separate entity entirely...... an attachment .....it might as well not be there. The pockets leak, and the back one has no stitching on the bottom, so it is useless. Before our most recent trip, I realized that the elastic waistband was stretched so far (from exhaustion) that the shorts might fall down around my hips very loosely.
Did I throw them into the Goodwill pile? I did not. Instead, I put the shorts under the foot of my old Singer and added another length of elastic to the waistband. It puckers funny, but they're still useable.
There's a saying about not being wasteful ............"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without!"...............and it's not so much that I am proud of my thriftiness with these pants as it is that they are like a dear old friend that travels with me. I can forsee the day when they look so worn and so tacky that I will have to leave them behind for good, but as we all do, I need all the friends I can get, and these are that. I do believe that I have gotten my twenty-five cents worth out of them.
As for that red mug with the duct tape around it................no, this is not a joke. I've been carrying it like that for a month or so. My sister gave it to me for Christmas about thirteen years ago. I like it. It works. It holds lots of water, keeps ice cubes frozen, and it's red so I can find it when I put it down in the wrong place. Alas, it also got dropped, and cracked the outer frame. True to form, my darling husband, "Mr. Fix-It," said he'd try to repair it................and after using Super Glue a time or two in vain, he brought it up from the shop, proudly smiling, and presented the repaired version of my favorite water mug. It does get some peculiar stares from people who don't know me when I've carried it out in public, but hey.........maybe they're just jealous. :)
Now, I have other water mugs...........my sister actually gave me a new mug or two along the way.................but either they don't keep stuff icy cold, or they tip over when I set them on the floor, or seem to be invisible when I am searching for them............THIS is the one I love.
So when you see me in my ancient, frayed traveling shorts, carrying a duct-taped drink mug.............please don't think that I can't afford NEW ones! I already HAVE them...............but I am a creature of habit, and enjoy and love comfortable old things.
It won't be easy to move this "stuff" into my past and walk away, and I'd probably be wise to look for some form of replacements before then. (Sort of like getting a new puppy after the old one dies, huh?)
I just wanted to show these off, actually. It took a lot of living to get those pants so frayed and those mugs so shattered.................
sort of like laugh lines and wrinkles....................
copyright: KP Gillenwater
