The princess has no sweatpants, circa 1985

           The princess has no sweatpants, circa 1985

 

             It is early on a school day morning at my home. Daughter, Brett (age 16) is in the upstairs bedroom, getting ready. Younger sister, Ashley (age14), is calling from across town, from mom’s home.       

 I reach for the phone. It's 6:30. Could be only one person. “Hello,” I say.    

 “Let me talk to Brett,” the voice says.

 “Brett, Ashley wants you,” I shout. 
             No response.

“I think she’s got the hairdryer on,” I say.

“Get her,” Ash says, “It’s important.”

I sit up in bed and let out a neighborhood-awakening screech, “Brett!”

She answers. “What?

“She says what?” I say to Ash.

“I need a pair of sweatpants. Tell Brett to give you a pair, bring them when you pick me up.”

I relay the message, “Brett, Ash wants a pair of sweatpants.”

“She has them all,” Brett hollers back.

I don’t have to relay this message. Ash hears it and yells into the phone her disbelief, “I have none!”

My relay to Brett, “She says she has none.”

“I have none,” Brett counters.

OK, this makes me think of myself, and my sweatpants. I’m the one who has none. And yet I know I have purchased maybe a half dozen pairs of sweatpants in the recent years. Add to that the three or four pairs that I came home with from college and still had, fifteen years after graduation until they mysteriously vanished when my daughters approached their teens. So now I also have none. 

“Dad!” implores Ash, still on the phone.

“Yeah,” I say, then quickly add, “When do you need these sweatpants?” Of course I know the answer to this.

“Today, I need them for gym,” Ash says.

“And if you don’t have them?” I ask.

“I flunk gym. Then I get kicked out of school and I’ll never be able to go to …”

“Ash, bag it ... I get the picture, I’ll find you some sweatpants.” I should be able to dig up one pair of sweatpants from somewhere, so I think.

“I don’t want any ones that are not normal,” Ash says.

“Don’t worry,” I say and we hang up.  In my mind I think, I won’t get you any of those "not normal" ones - because sweatpants are all the same - normal.

I approach Brett, just to see if any further clarification will surface now that Ash is off the phone, 

“Brett, why don’t you give Ash a pair of sweatpants?”

 

“Dad, she has all of my sweatpants,” Brett says emphatically.

I can see that this is going nowhere. It’s one of those special child-parent junctures that has been reached here at 6:45 AM.  So I pause for a small reflection. This is not a big deal, I know. I’m not uptight about this. “But just this small point, if I may, could I please locate one pair of sweatpants” I think to myself. So, obviously I'm talking to God.  And thus - obviously - it is a big deal. 

Whatever. 

            OK, the facts are so: A half dozen pairs of sweatpants, purchased with family funds, have passed through the door of my house - on the way in. I know that. And it’s probably true that they were equally distributed, three to each daughter, and none to me.

             I know also, that my own three or four, original post-college pairs were not stolen directly from me, by an outside party - or person. In other words they were first claimed by one of my daughters and subsequently made their way out of the country (read family), glaumed (appropriated) by so-called friends.

            Nothing against the friends. "Acquiring" a friend's wardrobe is "fair game" in the teen world of today.  
 

But to continue ... I know now, one true thing: that today re. sweatpants, I have none.  I might add that I know one more final thing and that is that God himself knows the answer to all of this, i.e. where those sweatpants are, and I would so much appreciate Him/Her sharing it with me.   But that will never happen, and I don’t blame Him, or Her.”  

            I do have a another wish though. I wish the world were different. I wish I could somehow magically summon both children to appear before me now and I could ask them specifically about all of the sweatpants. I would look them both in the eye with a serious face and I think then, I could get to the bottom of this - the truth. That’s what I want.  That would be nice, and interesting. Then we could move on.  No big deal.  Oh, and also, I’d like to be able to do this, for the purpose of this interrogation: I'd like to be able to change both girls back to a six year old mindset so they won’t be so smart and able to wiggle out of every question.

OK, back to real life. I don’t have both parties in front of me, and neither daughter is six again, so let’s make do with what I have. “Brett,” I say in a tone befitting a world peace negotiator, “can’t you just give Ash one pair.”

“Dad, I have none!” she says. “Ashley has the white pair that we got at the shore, she also has the pair I use for cheerleading, she has the pair that Mary Anne gave me, she has …”

“OK, OK, I get the picture."  I knew this wouldn’t work, I need them both here and they both have to be six, maybe five.

It is now 6:55 AM. I am in the attic fishing around in my old army-clothes box. I am on my hands and knees wearing only pajama shorts. It is dark in the attic and I am aware that there are bees in this attic and also that there are special areas of the floor, spaces between the boards that are so arranged to catch crawling burglars by having them fall through the floor into upstairs bedrooms. I am aware that either of these traps (bees or weak floors) might snare me as I inch my way toward where I think my military clothes have been stashed since 1970. 

I crawl on. I locate a box, reach in. Suddenly … I can't believe it - a miracle. 

I actually find the Army clothes box but am almost immediately overwhelmed with the feeling of haplessness that comes from being certain that I am about to be foiled again by the gods. I have made it this far but I know that those wonderful tan sweatpants that I got when I was in the service, with the number of the platoon or squad or something at the top of the left leg, with the brown drawstring, … I know they won’t be in this Army box where they should be.  I know this because I am sure that the Gods have now moved them somewhere else. They will be gone like all other sweatpants and they would have been perfect, Ash would have loved them.

Imagine my surprise and gratitude to the Gods when I actually find the sweatpants just where I thought they would be, after fifteen years no less. I crawl backwards out of the attic, careful as an Army Private avoiding land mines in a battlefield.  I close the attic door and come downstairs and proudly display the sweatpants to Brett.

Brett looks at them.  “I guess,” she says.

            Not a good appraisal I know but I am not swayed. “They’re great,” I say - end of discussion.

            I take the sweatpants downstairs and set them on the arm of the couch and put my keys on top of them. This way I won’t forget them when I go out the door. Smart huh?

            Brett is riding to school with friends today so with sweatpants in tow I drive to Donna’s (ex-wife) alone to get Ash. 

            Minutes later Ash bounces out of the front door and into the front seat. 

            I hold up the pants to show Ash in a manner befitting a fine haberdasher. “Nice huh?” I say. 

            “I guess,” Ash says. Same as Brett, exactly.

            I’m just not in the mood to go into a major campaign here, so I don’t say much, and I don’t get hyper. I say only this, and calmly too, “So what’s the problem?” I don’t say anything about the Army. This is 1986 not 1970.

            “What’s that number?” Ash says. Ash doesn’t know what a platoon is and this is not the time for education about Army units and regardless, I forget that stuff myself, and besides, it could be that I made that up about the platoon number. Truthfully I don’t know what the number is.

            So I make up an answer, “It’s a locker number,” I say.  I don’t know why I say this.  Maybe I’ll say they’re from college if she inquires further. What does she know anyway?

            “Locker number?” Ash says, obviously suspicious.

            “Yeah, so? What difference does it make?”

            “Nothing,” Ash says.  I think she has likely rejected the sweatpants, but I’m not going to debate the issue. Anyway at least now I have a pair of sweatpants and I at least think they are cool.

             When we get to school Ash gets out of the car and says, “Thanks anyway Dad,” and she leaves the sweatpants on the front seat.

            “What about gym?” I say, calling after her..

            “Don’t worry about it,” she says turning back, with books gathered in her folded arms as she walks toward school.  As I watch her walk, I think how blessed I am and how much I love her and then I look at the sweatpants and think, who cares anyway?  But I wonder - really - what it was?  Was it the number?  Or was it the color?  They look great to me. My thoughts go back again to all of the original sweatpants that I have owned. 

            Where are they all?  Really, where?  They are most probably still alive, still solid cloth material, not disintegrated into gas, certainly not liquids. They’re still here, on earth somewhere, but where? Have any of them made it out of the state I wonder, the country perhaps?  Any made it to Europe, Asia?  Oh well.  I start the car and head for work, wishing that I could visualize each pair of sweatpants that I have ever owned, with a detailed note about their whereabouts and the journey they took to get there. Interesting, I surmise.

While driving I think to myself, you know, fifteen pairs, that’s a lot of money, and it’s not only sweatpants. The same thing happens to other things, tee shirts and sweatshirts especially. That’s even more money. While I’m thinking, I see that this is something that I should not think about because I cannot solve it. It’ll end soon enough and when it does I’ll wish that the old no-sweatpants days were back again. Forget it, I tell myself, be grateful for the blessings you have.  I put the thought of sweatpants out of my head and continue west on NJ Route 10, toward my work, feeling truly blessed.

Seven days later, Brett and I are at the breakfast table.  I’m eating oatmeal with rice milk, and Brett, to my dismay, is having Fruit Loops. I’m reading the paper and Brett says, “Tell Ash, when you pick her up (I’ll be picking up Ash in fifteen minutes, Brett is driving herself) that I want to borrow her sweatshirt, the one Marc gave her, so I can wear it in gym, else I’ll freeze.”

I recall quite well what happened just last week, with the sweatpants thing, but I don’t draw any comparisons. “OK,” I say.

“Tell her to leave it in her locker.” Apparently Brett has a key to Ash’s locker, or combination or ... whatever.

            “Yeah, OK,” I say.

            So I pick up Ash, and tell her immediately that Brett wants to borrow her sweatshirt, so go back in and get it.  Ash gives me a look like I just asked if Brett could borrow the shoes on her feet.  

            “What?” I say.

            “Dad!” Ash says.  

“What?” I say, again.

“Brett has that sweatshirt!” Ash says.

            OK, OK I get it. I should have known.  I don’t want to go into this any further, but just to finish the thought I add at quick speed, “Brett needs it for gym, she says leave it in your locker.”  There. Done.

            Ash ignores me; she’s fishing under the seat for something. Now she stretches into the back seat and starts throwing things around.

            “What are you looking for?”

            “Nothing,” she says. as she opens the glove compartment and looks around.

            “Tell me,” I say, “maybe I know where it is,”

            Apparently this convinces her, “I’m looking for the Genesis tape,” she says.

            “You left it here?”

            “No, Brett stole mine. I told her it was mine and that I left it there on the desk, right where she found it, but she insisted that it was hers and she took it.” 

            “Yeah, I know, big brother John used to do stuff like that with me,” I say, trying to show sympathy for my youngest daughter that some things cannot be controlled, that Brett, big sister, can control certain matters just because of age.

            For a thousand reasons, I want to hug Ashley. I don't because - well - she's fourteen and ... Instead I pat her knee. "You're the greatest," I say.

            Ashley says nothing, but I'm sure she gets my meaning. I keep looking at her.

            "Can we go," she says.