 I have just now realized how important my bathrobe is to my sanity.
It's essential. Especially in the mornings when I wake up before
it's light out and my eyes are clouded with something that distorts
everything I see. My husband looks like Barney the Dinosaur's older
brother in his green bathrobe, and my children look like a horde of
giant houseflies flitting around the kitchen and lighting on
anything with sufficient sugar content.
I just can't face another day with Barney and the horde of flies
until I pull on my pink, pilled bathrobe like a protective shield.
Then things suddenly seem a little better. My bathrobe warms me. It
protects me from sticky little fly hands. I'm about as unsexy as I
could be, so even Barney keeps his distance other than a quick hug.
Admittedly, the hug is a needed commodity in my daily routine,
but if I'm not shielded in my worn-out bathrobe, a hug can quickly
become a grope. Gropes are not desirable at that ungodly hour.
My bathrobe zips up the front, so there is no possibility of a
drafty gap (which might also encourage Barney to cop a feel). No
possibility, that is, unless I cross my legs at the kitchen table
and my knee forces the zipper to explode and embarrass me. Then I
have to spend the next 15 minutes in my bedroom yanking down a
4-foot-long, stubborn, misaligned zipper while my raisin bran gets
soggy.
My bathrobe has oversized pockets so that when my children hand
me random objects in the morning -- used Kleenex, a permission slip
to sign, a 4x4 Lego piece they found in the dishwasher -- I have
somewhere to stuff them until I can reliably identify them.
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Once, when cleaning out those pockets, I came across a lump of pink
marshmallow hearts that one of my children had apparently picked out
of their cereal and given to me as a token of their undying love.
How sweet! I could say that now that I was fully awake. Of course,
the hearts were now inedible because they had come in contact with
milk from the cereal bowl. So they bonded with the used Kleenex and
lint while wallowing around in my oversized bathrobe pocket.
Separating used Kleenex from formerly wet marshmallow is not an easy
task, but I did give it a half-hearted attempt.
I thought if I could free those hearts, I could put them in my
memory box. Then, years from now, when that sweet child forgets my
birthday, I could pull those marshmallow hearts out as a reminder
that yes, indeed, he had once loved me.
Because my bathrobe covers me from head to toe, it has saved me
from embarrassing moments when a towel wrapped around my wet body
was the only other option. If you answer the door in your bathrobe,
the delivery guy doesn't know you aren't wearing anything under it,
does he? He may speculate -- but he doesn't know. While, with a
towel, there is ... no doubt.
I remember many Christmas mornings when my mother was
photographed in her ugly, old, worn-out bathrobe. I used to wonder
why she would allow herself be photographed like that. Years have
passed and with those years came understanding. Now, I just want to
buy her a new bathrobe every Christmas.
[By LAURA SNYDER]
You can reach the writer at
lsnyder@lauraonlife.com
Or visit www.lauraonlife.com
for more columns and info about her books. |
