Some people lose the shirt off their backs. My sons lose the pants off their butts. I don't know how this happens, I really don't. But somehow, every once in a while, one of the boys comes downstairs in the morning yelling, "Mom! Mom! I don't have any pants!"
Now, really, because my husband is the Lord of the Laundry, they should be yelling "Dad! Dad!", but they don't, because their Dad is also the drill sergeant who makes them run. So if they admit to him that their pants have disappeared . . . again . . . somehow . . . well, they don't want to have to sweat about that. This is why they yell, "Mom! Mom!" (The ploy never works, though; I just get out the tennis racket and lob them over the net to the Lord of the Laundry, and the boys end up getting both of their parents down on their case, one who makes them run and the other who makes them clean their room.)
The really interesting question, the real mystery, is this: Where do the pants go? I have no clue. The Bermuda shorts triangle, perhaps.
But a secondary question (and the only one I know how to answer) is this: How do we replace the pants cheaply and quickly? And the answer is: stockpiling. In the same way some people harvest food in the summer and store it up for the winter (okay, the same way that *I* can food and store it for the winter), that's the way I also harvest cheap clothes from yard sales during the summer and store them up for use on some long-distant February morning.
Yesterday morning when J-son came downstairs yelling, "Mom! Mom!", I served him up to his father. But then, when the Lord of the Laundry returned the serve, I conceded the match. I went shopping in the closet, and pulled out a "brand new" pair of pants, purchased last summer at either 50¢ or $1.
Even if I liked going to stores (and I don't), I probably wouldn't like going to stores at 7 a.m. on a Friday morning with a half-naked teenage boy who needs emergency pants in time for school. Say what you will about the penny-pinching life, it's still true that bulk-buying when things are cheap saves both money and time.
Now, really, because my husband is the Lord of the Laundry, they should be yelling "Dad! Dad!", but they don't, because their Dad is also the drill sergeant who makes them run. So if they admit to him that their pants have disappeared . . . again . . . somehow . . . well, they don't want to have to sweat about that. This is why they yell, "Mom! Mom!" (The ploy never works, though; I just get out the tennis racket and lob them over the net to the Lord of the Laundry, and the boys end up getting both of their parents down on their case, one who makes them run and the other who makes them clean their room.)
The really interesting question, the real mystery, is this: Where do the pants go? I have no clue. The Bermuda shorts triangle, perhaps.
But a secondary question (and the only one I know how to answer) is this: How do we replace the pants cheaply and quickly? And the answer is: stockpiling. In the same way some people harvest food in the summer and store it up for the winter (okay, the same way that *I* can food and store it for the winter), that's the way I also harvest cheap clothes from yard sales during the summer and store them up for use on some long-distant February morning.
The summer crop of yard sale clothes,
put up for the lean winter months.
Yesterday morning when J-son came downstairs yelling, "Mom! Mom!", I served him up to his father. But then, when the Lord of the Laundry returned the serve, I conceded the match. I went shopping in the closet, and pulled out a "brand new" pair of pants, purchased last summer at either 50¢ or $1.
Even if I liked going to stores (and I don't), I probably wouldn't like going to stores at 7 a.m. on a Friday morning with a half-naked teenage boy who needs emergency pants in time for school. Say what you will about the penny-pinching life, it's still true that bulk-buying when things are cheap saves both money and time.
I have a large Sterilite tub in the basement for the same purpose. When the boys come to me on Sunday morning before church saying their pants or shirt or shoes don't fit, we go "shopping" in the tub. I can't imagine living any other way.
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