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The Locked Bathroom

It's a funny thing about a blog that no one knows about yet. It's like a locked bathroom, a magic sanctuary, a junior high school journal. You can just sit in it, rummaging around in the old bellybutton for wayward lint, maybe sing off-key a little bit or stare off into space, and nobody's the wiser, the more grossed out, or irritated. Even after I hit the "Publish" button, I think I'm going to pretend I didn't.

Dead People's Pajamas

10/18/2013

6 Comments

 
Picture
I'm certain I've worn some, and my preternaturally tall children have probably also worn their share. I can't help but think this. We buy a lot of clothes at Goodwill and other thrift stores. I know that plenty of young vital people get rid of pajamas because they're scratchy, or too tight in the waist, or when unwrapped on Christkwanzzakah morning inspire comments like "my God what made Aunt Violet think I'd want go to bed impersonating a container ship full of pineapples?", but some people have their pajamas got rid of for them. After they die. In pajamas printed all over with pineapples. 

I've had to face facts. Of the total number of pajama pieces hanging anonymously on the overcrowded rack next to the shelf full of half-used notebooks and half-burnt candles, some portion therof, have been died in, or at least dyinged-ed in. That nice pair of light cottony flower besprinkled bottoms with one end of the drawstring disappeared forever in the waistband? Even if they weren't on point for the final breath, there's still a good chance they were in the final rotation.

We'll take them.

And sleep and lounge in them. Because my husband and I want to both spend a lot of time with our kids, and get to buy lap-tops. Because I want to both be able to work on the books I'm writing and feed my kids organic milk. To make them taller. So they can fit in a wider array of more adult-size dead people's pajamas.

We're used to such "trade-offs". For seventeen years, our family's domestic economy has been entirely based in the "pre-owned" market. Cars, furniture, books, Santa gifts, appliances, computers, dishes, pets. If we could get our hands on some used doctor's appointments, we'd at least explore the notion. Our economy has been entirely based on the perpetual need to stretch each dollar like a tarpaulin over a sprawling pile of goods and services that never quite fits in its shade. 

And we have it easy. 

Compared to those living in the grinding poverty of the truly poor, we are rich. Besides making an additional $14,000 above the poverty threshold for a family of five in 2012 ($26,000), we have education, cultural privilege, and perhaps most subtly powerful in the end, the peace of mind, and risk calculation adjustment that comes with having connections to at least a few people with more economic security who wouldn't stand by idly if economic disaster struck us. None of us have ever yet wanted for food or any other essential. Clean water? Check. Roof? Check. A zillion books? Check. A lot of time to ourselves and on our terms? Check. Friends and family who would help (and have helped) us with babysitting and loans? Check. Dead people's pajamas? Check. Or don't check. No way to tell, really.


6 Comments
Christine Gresser
10/18/2013 04:10:15 am

I love wondering who got engaged or landed a lifesaving new job wearing something from my armload of new-to-me clothing, giggling over how many kids have peed and pooped in these skorts and pants I bought my then-small-sized kids, but until now I have never actually considered the Dead People's Pajamas! Wonderful piece. Thank you for writing this and thank you to Kate for sharing the link! And yes, it's all about trade offs. More time with kids, less interested in the grind just to amass moremoremore. I'm gonna pop some tags. : )

Reply
Barbara Marshall
10/18/2013 10:38:33 am

Some years ago, I went to a clothes-swapping party around here. We all brought stuff that we not longer wanted, with the idea being that we would find trash in each other's treasure. One of the women at the party was a daughter of a woman, a diplomat's wife, I believe, who was killed when Pan Am 103 was blown up over Lockerbie. I wore her skirt and blazer for years after that.

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Laura link
10/18/2013 11:53:26 am

I read about the concern that the thrift contains clothes that someone died in years ago in the late lamented zine "Thrift Score". The author's retort was, "What if someone famous died in them?" But seriously, I've been donating to thrifts all my life- I'm sure by the time I pass away, the amount I've donated will be way, way more than the amount I'll have left in my closet, let alone the amount on my person at the time. My dad died in his pajamas but they weren't exactly in donation-worthy condition afterward, and I'll bet a lot of people's clothes are not either. I believe it's only worth feeling creeped out about if you want to 'cause it's almost Halloween!

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Rebecca
10/18/2013 03:37:01 pm

Giggling loudly.

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Auntie Betsy
10/28/2013 02:33:11 am

Things more frightful than wearing dead peoples clothing: wearing new clothes manufactured by living children in third world countries; Good Will executives’ hefty salaries in light of its disabled employees’ earnings (significantly below minimum wage); living in (rather than dying in) ones pajamas (a practice I cop to more days than less of late, looking not unlike Bette Davis in Baby Jane); owning Hawaiian pineapple-print pajamas purposely bought off the rack (cop to as well), rather than gifted by Auntie Violet or found in a Good Will shop; having been dashed to learn a certain niece produces her cool outfits via thrift shops.

PS: the blogs just keep getting better

Reply
Jen
10/28/2013 02:59:35 am

Right on every count, Aunt Betsy!

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