zip

I did my best to keep Jeff's coat alive. The gray, puffy "Jim Whitaker" down jacket from L.L.Bean, which he'd had for roughly 20 years. It was dirty, stained, and beginning to sprout holes. And the zipper pull was a distant memory. But still, for inexplicable reasons, that was the zipper he could still fasten. Even without a pull. Not every time, but often. 

I enjoined him, occasionally, to switch his devotion to the equally gray, equally puffy, Sierra Designs Gore-tex jacket. But he insisted it was "too good." Not that it's at all good, really. I used to wear it, years ago, before I became enamored of all-black, all the time, in my outerwear selections. (well, except for my raincoat, which is raspberry.) And it is, in fact, older than the Jim Whitaker. And missing a zipper pull. Instead, it has a small o-ring, which I slipped on in lieu of the original pull.

But, I do what I can for Jeff, because he drew a crappy card from the deck, and I think he deserves small indulgences such as wearing an ugly old coat, if it pleases him to do so. So, I decided to fix the big hole in the sleeve which had begun spewing feathers around the front hallway. (Note: just because the material a coat is made of reminds you of the sleeping bag you fixed with an iron-on patch 10 years ago, does not mean it is the same material.) I tried to iron on a patch. Well, the hot iron had scarcely made contact with the coat, when fizzzzoooosh...where once there had been a ½" slit, there was now a 2" diameter gaping melt-hole. I gave up, and tossed Jim Whitaker in the trash. 

So now It's Sierra Designs, which should have as much beat-up old cachet as Jim Whitaker. But here's the problem: Jeff can't do the zipper. He also can't do the zipper on the buff-colored wool jacket I recommend to him on more temperate days. With either of these jackets, he snaps the bottom snap, then snaps the top snap, leaving a big, gaping belly-full of exposed shirt underneath. It's useless for me to explain or demonstrate. His ability to zip zippers went in the trash with the Jim Whitaker jacket. Reminds me of the old grandfather clock song, but kind of less picturesque. 

So I do the zippers.