“It’s Spring Break!” For many people especially those in their wild college years that statement immediately brings to mind frat parties, endless drinking, and scantily clad women prancing around; yes I did say prance.
Around our house that announcement is akin to being rounded up and sent to a concentration camp. Instead of wild parties where anything goes, a Spring Break around our house is an endless array of chores and spring-cleaning to prepare the house for the upcoming summer and pool season.
This year on the dreaded Spring Training agenda we have cleaning the attic, going through the countless boxes of junk that has accumulated in the garage and then the coup de grace – digging a trench around the swimming pool perimeter and along the sides of the house to finally add gigabit Ethernet to every room in the house. Is it any wonder that we had to drag the kids out from under their beds to enlist their help in these efforts?
One of the first admonitions I received from Trina was to not wear any of my good clothes for these chores since the last thing she wanted was to have to spend all night with bottles of stain remover and laundry detergent to get whatever out of my new jeans or shirt.
I went into the closet, closed my eyes and reached back into the darkest corners where old shirts go to die. I was half fearful that when my arm came out from the tangled array of spider webs and dust that I would find I had selected a Tricky Dick for President shirt or a rainbow colored polyester disco suit. Instead I found some car shirt from what looked like the mid-90’s. To complete this ensemble I retrieved an old pair of jeans from my drawer that had a small hole in the seat but otherwise seemed serviceable.
As I put these clothes on I realized that I hadn’t worn either of these articles of clothing for a very long time. I had forgotten that I was roughly 30 pounds lighter now than the last time either of these items had seen the light of day.
I stood there staring at myself in the mirror unable to believe what I was seeing. My pants were not only loose around the waist to the point where I could be a stunt double in some hip-hop music video. The belt that normally went with the pants was way too big as well leaving me holding up a handful of material.
The shirt looked like something that Omar would design in his tent factory. I wasn’t sure but I think there was enough room under each sleeve that I could rent the space out to homeless Haiti refugees.
There I was with a pair of pants now held up by a length of rope knotted as a belt along with enough shirt that if I used a hair dryer I could maybe inflate like a hot air balloon. About all that was missing from this outfit was some face paint, a red shiny nose, and large floppy shoes and I could rent myself out for children’s birthday parties.
After tucking several handfuls of shirt into my pants I made my way into the garage to begin cleaning up. As I walked out the door I could hear chuckles from my kids as they caught a glimpse of my new/old wardrobe.
Sure go ahead and laugh but just remember at some point these kids are going to want to bring home a date to meet their parents and if they are not careful I might just show up in my new clown outfit then who will have the last laugh?
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