'Tis official. It's summer.
I pulled my Cousin Smoothy reversible shorts off the shelf when I got home from work. This will be year thirty-four for them, having bought them in a tiny clothing shop just off Spring Garden Road in Halifax. They have fruits on one side and surfer comic strips on the other. I always wear them surfer-side out since I prefer the pastel pattern to the primary-colored fruits but the fabric is still flawless, the stitching is perfect and tight and the pockets are deep and huge enough for iphones, something that didn't exist when I bought them in 1985. At fifteen I still wore pastels in the summer. Now I have to because they're The Shorts That Won't Die.
I wore them downstairs. I have to water my new poppies, peonies and larkspur, all recent transplant additions to the English garden side of things. I want to do it before helping with dinner.
Oh my God. Lochlan says. Every year when you haul those out I can't believe you still have them.
I'll have them forever, I think. It just seems inevitable. They're not even wearing at all.
Is it weird that you're the exact same size that you were when you were fifteen though? PJ is incredulous.
I can't do anything about that. I shrug. I just never grew. Failure to thrive or something.
It's all the cotton candy Lochlan fed you instead of fruits and vegetables.
Lochlan tried to get her to eat her vegetables. Lochlan laughs as he talks about himself as if he's not right here. Lochlan did his best.
He did.
Is the company still around? Maybe I should get some lifetime shorts.
Yeah, I think you should. The problem is they won't be in their thirties til you're in your eighties and by then you'll have forgotten them.
Yes but you'll still be hauling out your shorts and marvelling that this year they're seventy years old or something because you forget nothing. It's a gift.
It's a curse, by far.
Maybe you can remember the shorts and forget the other stuff.
That's what I'm aiming for.