I looked at the pants and shirts draped over a dining room chair. I knew why they were there--they were pending discards. I started to ask questions. "What's wrong with your cords?"
He looked up from his list. "I've had them for years. They don't even stay up on my waist any more."
"And what about that shirt?"
"It's tired."
"Oh. And these pants?" And so it went (with constant interruptions from Elspeth in the kitchen, where she and Merry were writing 'books': "How do you spell SLEEP? GIRL? WILL?").
Finally Martin looked up from his list and let me have it: "I've had the same clothes for years. That pair of pants rides so low on my hips I constantly think they're going to fall down. I feel like you're grilling me."
"I'm not grilling you," I said (you be the judge.) I had to admit, I did fondly remember the tan cords as being from our honeymoon. In fact, I think that Martin wore them out past the shower of birdseed to the 'getaway' car that December eleven years ago when we started our new life together--and he'd worn them constantly every winter after that. Still, they looked pretty spiffy to me. And a loose waist--well, pishaw, isn't that what belts are for?
Martin stared across the table at me. "I know you're thrifty," he said, "But I really need some new clothes. That's why I'm making this list. My heavy cargo pants are full of holes."
I didn't point out that a few holes here and there only facilitate air movement, which is healthy for the skin. That's what tiny safety pins are for, anyway. My purse strap and my favorite sundress are two examples of very clever safety pin placement. (Sorry, Mom, I know you're cringing--That's hilly-billy stuff and Don't air your dirty laundry are the two key Mom phrases that just echoed in the recesses of my brain. See? I remember.)
Besides, I do make an effort now and then to avoid safety pins. Right before we went to Hershey a few weeks ago, I felt a wave of goodwill wash over me (family in the house, a lot of chips, coffee, and ice-cream) that prompted me to mend one of Martin's favorite pair of pants for him. It was a daunting task--to replace a button (he, he, I am not kidding) but I bravely persevered, found a button that looked just right and searched through several boxes and catch-alls until I finally found a needle in Merry's sewing kit. And then I double-threaded the eye and sewed that puppy on. No way was it coming off. I felt so pleased with myself and I just knew Martin would be overwhelmed by my prowess as a seamstress.
He was so very pleased and surprised. I could feel my heels high rising under those figurative June Cleaver pumps as I watched his grateful face. In our hotel in Hershey, he pulled those pants up past his thighs and went to button them--hmm. Something was wrong. He tried to be appreciative, commenting hesitantly, "It's just that the button is a little big for the hole."
"No way," I said. "I tried it and everything." Which was just the tiny bit of an exaggeration, since I hadn't exactly pushed it through the hole. I'd more just lifted it up next to the hole and surmised in a quick, intelligent calculation that it was the perfect size. Knowing that I was stretching things, I turned seamlessly to the next tactic--shifting the blame--and added, "It was in your little dish with your coins." Had Martin pressed on in his queries, I would have said next, "Well, you can just sew on your own buttons from now on," which would have ended the argument somewhat ridiculously, since I don't make a habit of sewing on his, mine, or the girl's buttons. (Come to think of it, Elspeth has been wearing a dress with two buttons missing from the back for about a year now. When people point this out, I feign surprise or an easy-going acceptance of life's little hiccups.)
But instead of pressing the point, Martin just buttoned up. By this, I mean he bent over almost double. His face turned two shades of purple. But he got that sucker through the hole, darn it. It seemed to me that the waistline was pulling in his stomach like a draw-string bag, but he insisted that one didn't notice the button-defect until one tried to get the pants off--
which, during a haphazard dash to retrieve a runaway Beatrix out of our hotel door while trying to fasten his pants, resulted in a rather large abrasion on his shoulder, where he listed heavily into the doorframe. Later that night, after he fell asleep prematurely and awakened later in the night and wanted to slip off his clothes for a better night's sleep, he almost rolled off the bed in his efforts to push that mammoth button back out of the hole.
Martin wearing the Bad Button pants at the Hershey kiss 'Pretend You're a Factory Worker' demonstration (I am not joking--you package the kisses and then you have to pay money to buy the kisses you have just sealed in a box). Martin looks good, doesn't he? That's because of the prowess of the button-sewer. BTW, there's my saftey-pinned purse. Can't tell, can you?The last morning in Hershey, as I was collecting clothes to go home, I pointed impatiently at his pants in a heap on the floor. "Your pants are on the FLOOR," I said, which is a bad, sorry thing I've done for many, many years: stating the obvious to assign blame.
"I know," he said. "That's where I finally got them off last night after trying forever to get the button undone."
I would like to point out, just for the record: This bad button job that I did, this struggle this good man has to go through every time he wears these pants, has not stopped him from wearing them. Nor, I'd like to add, has he pulled off the button and sewn on another one. I can guarantee it, and I'd put money down this very minute, that these pants will go the next eight years with this offending brown button, and when some sorry sap finally pays $2.50 for them at Goodwill in 2016, they will have to bend double to get the button through the hole. Though, by then, time will have done its magic, wearing the hole so wide that the button will seem as if it always fit, as though it were always there. It WILL still be there, attached by my very strong stitches, since in this effort, as in most, I adhered to this philosophy: If you're going to do something wrong, may as well go all-out and do it with a full heart.
That's the big, bad button philosophy. I hope it is one you will take with you this week.
