Yesterday I caught-up on some long overdue clothes management. Nate’s drawers have been overflowing with shirts that “aren’t cool.” While Jake has almost nothing to wear except school uniforms and “pocket shirts.”
Pocket shirts also fall squarely in the crosshairs of the “not cool” target. I would describe them as high quality, graphic striped t-shirts that stylish boys and JCrew models would choose, should their fanged snake and wolf shirts all be in the wash. Pocket shirts are what mom buys twice a year for Easter and holiday pictures. James recently picked one out for Nate to wear and he sincerely asked, “Is it picture day?” Clearly not cool…
Another one of my brilliant ideas came to me this past May. I tossed all of their socks and filled their drawer with piles of identical white athletic socks. It was brilliant. I had wasted hours of my life rooting around in their dark closet looking for matching socks. One helicopter sock. Oh, here’s one shark sock. Here’s one with a red toe and, oh wait, nope, this is orange. It had grown to become my #1 crazy-making pet peeve. I am much too talented to waste my gifts on sock hunting. And for $24 and the click of a mouse, the problem was erased. What could not be erased was the fact that I had let this nonsense go on for as long as it had, given it could be fixed with $24.
Children could no longer complain about socks hurting them via invisible owie things or aggressive seams or that the heals reached their ankles or the heals reached their arches— brilliance in the home economics of stocking administration. But I made the mistake of keeping three sets of striped socks. They didn’t seem that old. They had this magical quality of actually being easy to find in the abyss. And the boys began rooting around just for these exclusive socks. The “cool” socks.
One day we were in downtown Santa Cruz at the specialty sock store and Nate hoodwinked me into buying him a pair of dragon socks. They’re black with red dragons breathing fire. Really, they go with everything. The other day he finds them in the drawer— they’re so easy to see in the $24 sea of white. Anyway, he dons the new socks and proclaims as he leaps as though propelled by flames:
“I am the dragon MASTER… of SOCKS!”
Brilliant.