A warm fuzzy Christmas Story

A warm fuzzy Christmas story sort of involving yet another one of my mothers over priced jogging suits. When I was 18 and about to embark on a trip to Europe my mother presented me with gifts the night before my departure. One of which was, you guessed it an over priced nylon jogging suit from Nordstroms. Although jogging suits are just not my style (the whole hating to run and loathing sports shoes thing), as far as jogging suits went, this one was pretty groovy. The jacket had all these wild brightly colored faces on it and I have to this day never seen another one like it. Every time I opened my whatever piece of furniture they use instead of closets in Germany it always made me smile. Even though I never wore it, I did think enough of it to include it in the relatively few belongings that I packed when I high tailed it out of there running from ex-husband numero uno. The jacket remained in whatever closet I occupied moving from place to place, generally feeling unappreciated until just prior to divorce number two when newly single mother Lydia worked any temp job she could to get some cash. She was working at the Memorial coliseum former home of the Ice Rays scrubbing toilets for almost minimum wage. It was freaking freezing in there and as she had no decent jacket she found herself wearing what ever was in her closet. I'm not a very good story teller so this is where I'll break off and tell you that it was Christmas time and every time I went to HEB, I would eye this plastic car that would be perfect for a one year old boy to scoot around the yard in. It was twenty dollars which really isn't that much but when you are broke and only spending about 50 dollars a week to eat it sure seems like a lot. I wanted that car so badly, I could just see my little Blazer man scooting around the yard in it. The car was still in my thoughts that evening as I worked in the ice box Coliseum. It was boxing tonight which meant more drunks than usual lucky me. I was sweeping up trash when this skinny old Mexican guy that smelled like a brewery walked up to me and asked. "It's fucking freezing in here, let me wear your jacket". I just laughed and walked away. He walked up to me again and I thought that he was going to hit on me but instead he offered me fifty dollars for my fancy jogging jacket! SOLD!!! He put my jacket on and it looked good on him too. All be it a bit feminine. I was a happy camper! I bought the plastic car and it has been very loved by the two eldest boys. It is about time for it to retire so Ranger will never know this particular vehicle. So that is a Christmas story for you. Somewhere out there a scraggly Mexican dude has got my jacket. A footnote to this story would be that one of the maintenance men at the Coliseum found out I had sold my jacket and had his wife buy me a white fleece hooded jacket at Walmart. Which I appreciated and wore until I quit all my temp jobs to work as a cocktail waitress at the Palace. The end.