Jacket Season

First, yes.  It's been a while since I posted, I frecked up NaBloWriMo, et cetera et cetera.  To be honest, the way the Fates came together and mixed NaBloWriMo up with the new job and my finally understanding clipping masks and the early football game and a million other things meant that something had to go and that something was additional writing every day.  In the spirit of NaBloWriMo, I'm letting that go.  I'll write every day from now on and release any residual guilt I might feel for not writing every day.  Mkay?  Mkay?

The weather has finally taken a turn for the chilly, which means that in addition to Visiting Season, it's also Jacket Season.  That sounds all nice and cozy, doesn't it?  Like, "Ooh, it's Jacket Season.  Time to snuggle up by the firepit with a hot toddy while modeling my jacket."

Don't get comfy, people.

Jacket Season really means, "Oh, crap, it's Jacket Season.  Time to catch up on the ironing, because the Filing Cabinet knows we don't have any more room on any hook in this dang house on which the visitors during Visiting Season can hang their outerwear because Will's jackets have taken over the house."

Y'all.  My husband has roughly 76,000 jackets.  Jackets in every color but yellow, orange, and pink.  Plaid jackets.  Jackets with hoods.  Jackets with liners.  Jackets that are actually souped-up sweatshirts.  Jackets that serve as rain coats or wind breakers.  He has jackets that the school gives the staff, at least ten of them, all in shades of grey or black.  He has jackets he won by smoking a metric crapton of cigarettes.  He has a jacket given to him by his mother twenty years ago that is a virulent shade of dark teal.  He has jackets pocked by too many nights by the bonfire, with zippers that work only two percent of the time and with pocket liners that are in shreds.

And he won't get rid of a dang one of them.

Last year when the warm weather took hold, I piled up all of the jackets on the bed in the hopes that the sheer size of the mound would convince him that he should share the warmth wealth with ninety or so of our less fortunate citizens.  My bed looked like the world's largest lost and found pile.  I think he culled three out of the mix, not including the duplicate grey fleece school pullovers, one of which has a broken zipper.  (These two are two of about six grey fleece school pullovers.)

I wanted to bite my own face off.

Instead, I carefully laid all of our winter wear in a humongous tub (included was my stuff:  one winter coat, a lined flannel work shirt, and two fleece jackets for football games) that could be used as a rescue raft in case of flood and asked my dearest to find a place to put it.  I figured, since he has a bad back and honestly, we are slap out of storage space, that this would mean that he would get rid of some dang jackets.  Nope.  He wrestled that tub up into the attic and, sweating and groaning, commented on how that was one spring cleaning chore done.

ARRRRGH.

Now, the cool weather is back, so he wrestled the tub back down the steps with a look of sheer glee.  I am not kidding.  The boy was excited about getting his jackets out.  He has since festooned the makeshift rack he built specifically for his jackets in our bedroom (what woman doesn't want a one by ten resting on two plant hooks jutting out of her boudoir wall?), the pretty walnut disks I spent hours sanding and polishing in order to make interesting coat hooks for our foyer, and the back of every chair in our house with JACKETS.  It's as if he considers jackets to be a decorative accent.

I try not to complain, honestly, but I overheard him talking to his mother about a "light jacket" he'd seen in a catalog (I now go so far as to read any LL Bean or J Crew catalog in the bathroom where I can safely toss them away after I've gone through them so he won't see this season's crop of toasty outerwear) and I yelled, "NO MORE JACKETS."

It's sort of a family joke that people give him jackets, but I've lost my sense of humor about it.  Much as I love them, my family doesn't have to worry about wading their way through a sea of fleece and broadcloth should the jackets ever become too much for our hooks to handle.  Honestly, if you are reading this, family members, I won't, like, physically assault you if you gift my husband with more jackets this giving season, but I will do my best to make you miserable for five months.  Or seven, depending on the bulkiness of the jackets.

Jacket.

Jaaaaccckkkeeettt.

Even the word makes me cringe now.

Jacket.

Shudder.

Jacket.

Twitch.

I need some sort of Family Members of Jackets Anonymous meeting to go to.

Admitting there is a problem is the first step to recovery.

Jacket.

There is a problem.