Saturday, November 19, 2011

My Modeling Days Are Over

One thing most people probably don’t know about me is that I was a child model.

Those of you who have never met me may actually believe that statement.  Those who do know me, especially who have been around long enough to remember the tube sock era, may presently be wondering if I finally asked my doctor to give me some of those pills to put me in a happy place.

By way of explanation, it was an extremely short modeling career.  I was asked to model mukluks--don’t go look it up because you will see a definition including Eskimos and seal skin and these were really more like slipper socks.  It was a last minute request.  There was a catalog photo shoot and apparently the original mukluk model had—I don’t know—fallen ill or developed a last minute deadly foot fungus that left her incapable of the job.

As I recall, I was paid handsomely with the very same now slightly used though thankfully fungus free pair of mukluks.  Plus I had a good story for my friends at school.

This week, I had to exercise my atrophied modeling muscles.  We have already jumped through all the hoops to get David to wear his winter coat, because part of the fun of dealing with David is that he can sometimes make something that seems simple, like putting on a new winter coat which is alike in every way to last year’s winter coat except that it is one size larger and a slightly different shade of red, take 18 steps.

It has gotten cold enough recently, that David should really be wearing a hat and gloves to school, as well.  I decided to start with the gloves because in this case, they are the same pair as last year.  There is no subtle nuance that I had hoped I could slip past David because, to reiterate, THEY ARE THE VERY SAME PAIR HE WORE LAST WINTER.

As you can probably surmise from my excessive use of capitalization, I was frustrated when David refused to put them on.  I grabbed the entire basket of gloves, not surprisingly all in varying shades of red, gray and black and proceeded to try them on, modeling them for David.  I talked about the attributes of each pair—warm and cozy, mittens versus gloves.  I don’t suppose I did any better job in selling the gloves to David then my flat footed mukluk photo many years ago did in making the catalog order desk phone ring.  Still, I tried on every pair, hoping but not really believing that there would be a pair in there that David would find acceptable without heavenly intervention.  I believe I even said a quick prayer.

But, let me tell you that I did witness a miracle that day.

No, David did not wear the gloves.  He trotted off to the bus with his hands pulled up into the ends of his coat sleeves.  BUT, every glove or mitten had a mate, thus proving Newton’s law of winter outerwear that at one time, every right handed glove has an equal and opposite left handed glove.  Eureka.

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