Theme: clothing you cant live without

This theme is so odd that I couldn’t pass it up.

Right now in my life? No, I don’t have a favorite piece of clothing. I suppose my dress slacks for work are extremely valuable to me, by necessity. But they are not a favorite of mine. Not something to which I have a connection.

However, in junior high… I had a vest. It was known as “the vest”. It was a fairly thin blue nylon vest with a sewn-in red chevron across the front. By thin I mean light weight. It had that spun fiber fill stuff, with a zip front and a snap top and bottom.

I wore this thing everywhere. It was, along with my natural afro-kink hair, my trademark.

More than just a visual trademark, it also represented my personality – my mission, if you will.

Over the years of wearing the vest, I eventually wore the stitching out of the pockets, from overfilling them. This actually enhanced the vest’s cargo capacity by allowing me to store materials throughout the entire volume of the jacket, not just what would fit in the pockets.

I became known as mr. whatever. I would routinely adjust the inventory of my vest, swapping out unused or uncomfortable items for new things which I thought might be handy for someone.

People could come to me for just about any office supplies, including a stapler, full-size scissors, ruler, scotch tape, masking tape. I also carried a variety of pens and pencils, a few novelty entertainment items, gum or candy, a spare digital watch (at one point in my junior high years, I wore 3 digital watches. As the bands broke, the watches ended up in the Vest).

Then were the odd items: scientific calculator, computer disks, tape measures, hammer, files, and other tools, cameras, batteries (9v & AA), dice, and a lighter.

I once smuggled a propane torch and starter into a physics class as an object of revenge, thanks to the Vest.

As it grew ratty and its time in this world grew short, my friends and I dreamed about the appropriate burial ceremony: should it be burned? Or shot with a firearm? Or both? We talked about suitable places to scatter its ashes.

My mother, unaware of these plans, took advantage of my abscence on a ski trip once, to simply throw it away.