I slipped the leather jacket on and walked to the upright mirror, with a chorus of three female “Oo-o-ohs” echoing behind me. Always a good sign.
It was a beautiful leather jacket, the kind I could never afford when they were in style decades ago. The leather was soft and supple (“like buttuh” some might say) and it fit me perfectly. It was the bomber style I love, with snap closures at the wrist, leather collar, and zip-up front. Slash pockets on the side, and two internal pockets with buttons to close them for security. Even a zip-out liner for extra warmth on cold, windy days.
I turned to the Oo-o-oers, and they repeated their chorus.
Two of them can be forgiven, because they were the owners of the thrift shop I was in at the time. They would have Oo-o-oed at the cash register if I had shown up with a spittoon on my head.
But the other Oo-o-oer was my friend Carol, who always thinks I look better in any clothes that don’t come from my own closet. And if you’ve seen what’s hanging in my closet, you’d probably agree with her.
It’s usually hats that unleash her Oo-o-oh, and I usually agree with her, because there’s nothing about the top of my head to recommend its unabashed nakedness. Besides, with nothing but a few wisps of hair standing between my scalp and the sky, I rarely go outside these days without a hat on my head. Or at least a chic spittoon.
But this wasn’t a hat we were talking about here. This was a leather jacket with an insulated liner. Being tried on by a guy who spends winters in Naples, Florida, where the coldest climate one ever has to face is the blast of movie-theater air conditioning.
“But when would I ever wear it?” I said.
All three women shrugged. It gets chilly at night sometimes in Naples, they said. And I spend a lot of time in Chicago, too, where snow has been recorded in every month except July and August.
“Brand new, that coat probably cost $400,” Carol said, and she was probably right, because when coats like that were all the rage, I longed for one and checked the price, but ended up spending the money on food for my kids instead. Call me sentimental.
I checked the price tag on this one — $35. And that seemed about right, because nobody wears leather coats like that anymore. It may be an animal-rights bias, or just the whims of fickle fashion, but all those $400 coats have gone to thrift shops like this one, and only a total fashion flop-dingus would consider buying one today and wearing it out on the street with God and all those people watching.
“Ten percent off today,” one of the corporate Oo-o-oers said. So…OK… $31.50 — about what you might pay for a concert T-shirt — for a fine leather jacket that some hipster shelled out $400 for a few decades ago. Adjusted for inflation, his divorce probably cost less once his wife took the kids and went to find a guy who put food on the table.
“But I don’t need another leather jacket,” I said, and that was true, because there are four others hanging in my coat closet. All of them were bought at places just like this, for no more than what this one would cost me.
One I bought in Michigan last October on a cold, blustery day for only seven dollars. It is black, insulated and long, covering my butt from the wind, and it, too, is made of leather “like buttuh.” I paid less for it than I would have spent at Starbucks, and it kept me warmer on that day — but on no other day since.
I have another chocolate brown bomber-style leather jacket that I keep in the trunk of my car in case I ever have to change a tire on a chilly day. It has that worn, beat-up look that Indiana Jones might sport.
And there’s another one just like it hanging in my closet, but neater and less beat-up, and it looks great worn over jeans. In it, I look like a fashionable man on the street in a movie set in the late 1980s.
And another thin black bomber jacket without a liner, just in case the occasion calls for an out-of-date black leather jacket instead of an out-of-date brown leather jacket on a day that isn’t quite as chilly.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Hey, who says a guy can’t treat himself to more than one leather jacket, even if you don’t wear it all that often?” one of the Oo-o-oers said. “Heck, I’ve got a closet full of shoes, and some of them I wear only once a year.”
The other Oo-o-oers nodded. “I’ve got a pair that still has the price tag on it,” one said.
“Was the price tag more than $31.50?” I said. All three Oo-o-oers barked out a laugh in unison. Stupid question.
Now it seemed as if my buying this jacket might make each of them feel a bit better about those red spike heels sitting on a shelf that only go with that crimson dress that doesn’t fit them anymore. Call it my civic duty.
“Really, it makes no sense,” I said, and I pulled the jacket off.
“Look,” Carol said, “you said you didn’t have a story in mind for your column this week, right?” Her implication was that my buying this jacket would give me a tale to tell that’s no stupider than most of the other stupid adventures I tell on a weekly basis.
It’s nice when a friend really gets you.
I’m wearing it now as I write this in Florida, and I have to admit that it’s really comfy because I have the AC set low, and I love that new thrift-shop smell.
Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.
