How Could You Lose a Whole Suit?
A week before the winter formal, I asked Shane to make sure his dress clothes still fit him. We’d gotten him dress pants and two sport coats for 8th grade graduation – but nine months ago, he was a lot shorter than he is now.
“Make sure you try on your shirt, too!” I warned. “And if your pants don’t touch your shoes, they are too small!” Shane went upstairs.
A week later, just before formal, Shane yelled down the stairs: “I can’t find my stuff!”
“What stuff?” I yelled back.
“My suit! My dress pants aren’t here! My coat isn’t here! My shoes aren’t even here!”
“How could you lose a whole suit?” I asked, incredulous.
I went upstairs. I dug around. “Didn’t you just try everything on last week?”
“No,” he mumbled. Apparently, he hadn’t thought that was very important.
We tore the house apart. We took things out of his closet that have been in there for ten years. We looked in other closets, other rooms, the dress-up bin that’s loaded with Halloween costumes.
“I took it to school for the play,” he said. “But I know I brought it home.”
Uh-oh, I thought. I do not know that he brought it home. In fact, other than his ski stuff, I don’t remember him every bringing home anything from school that wasn’t in his backpack.
Remembering his ski stuff reminded me: Shane loses things that are right in front of his very eyes. He’d lost his helmet and goggles only two weeks prior – and they were right inside his ski bag.
“Let’s just figure out something else to wear,” I told him. We mish-mashed an outfit from Shane’s black jeans, Dylan’s old shirt, his dad’s tie and a sports coat and shoes that Shane didn’t like.
But everything fit. And he looked awesome.
I figured we’d search for the clothes later, somehow, somewhere. His dress shoes, his other sports coat, his dress pants and shoes – they all had to be somewhere.
But they aren’t somewhere. They are just gone. And because he’s likely to grow another inch or so before Dylan’s graduation, Shane will need new dress clothes anyway.
But wow. Really? He lost his whole suit, and didn’t even know it.
A week or so after formal, I got dressed for work and reached for my black flats – the shoes I wear to work nearly every day. They’re not super fancy or anything, but they’re the best shoes I own for a long day teaching.
My shoes weren’t in my closet. So I checked downstairs, where I sometimes leave them by the door – but they weren’t there, either. I checked the car, the boys’ rooms, the laundry room, the nooks in crannies in every closet, the corners of every room in the house.
My shoes are just gone.
I’d like to be upset, but I am far too confused for that.