Thinking Out Loud

By Gerard Meister

I was digging through my closet one afternoon looking for something to wear. My wife and I were going to the theater that night and the weather forecast was for dropping temperatures. ("Unseasonably cold," the weatherman warned.)

"Say, look what I found," I said to my wife. "You remember that charcoal gray cardigan I bought for the Reagan re-election picnic in Jersey - well here it is," I said, holding it up. "Still good as new."

"You're wearing that tonight?" my wife asked.

"Why no, of course not," I lied. (Men married for any length of time know what phrase really means: fat chance you'll take me out looking like that.) "Just wanted you to see how well they made things years ago." And I quietly slipped out to my favorite haberdasher to buy something new.

"How about a nice sweater for this cold snap," I asked him. "Got something in my size?"

"Here's a number," he said, taking a sweater from the shelf. "It's very popular and you'll look debonair in it."

Debonair is my middle name.

"But it's a pullover," I said. "That'll be hard for me to get on and off and it'll mess my hair."

"Where have you been for the last ten years? You don't actually wear this type sweater, you toss it casually over your shoulders and tie the sleeves across your chest," he said, as he draped the garment over me. "It'll make you look thinner, and it's on sale."

At home, I couldn't wait to show my wife my new look. I tried to put it on the way the clerk did, by swinging it backwards over my head in one motion, sort of the way a cowboy would toss a lasso. I ran to check in the mirror to see if I had achieved the right effect; if I would remind people of a mature version of Robert Redford, but the sweater had miraculously disappeared. I darted back to the den where I had put the thing on and found it dangling from the chandelier and needed a ladder to get it down. Luckily, nothing was broken, but I knew instinctively that I hadn't heard the last from that troublesome piece of clothing and decided not to chance an evening in the theater with it. I wore my trusty blue blazer.

The next adventure I had with the sweater was in a crowded restaurant. I had cleverly draped it across the back of my chair in such a way that all I need do to put it on was grasp both sleeves, make sure no chandelier or power line hovered overhead, and flip the garment backwards. The startled woman that I deftly bagged with this maneuver was standing too close to me to begin with and certainly had no reason to shriek the way she did. That's really what caused the waiter to spill the carafe of wine. I offered to pay for the wine when the proprietor came running, but he waved me off. I think the restaurateur was just happy to see me go, so I apologized to one and all and left.

I began to fear the sweater was cursed, and even though I gave up wearing it, my troubles with it did not go away. I took to carrying it when I went to the movies and cuddled with the sweater blanket-like, if the air conditioning became unbearable, which was often the case.

One rainy night last month when my wife and I decided to go to the movies, I asked her to carry the sweater so I, ever the gentleman, could hold the umbrella. When we got home she was still clutching the sweater, but I had lost the umbrella.

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