Hoodie Time

Christmas’ and birthdays kind of take on a new meaning the older you get. It’s cliché to say, but at a certain point the pleasure you get from giving really does outweigh that of the getting. It’s gotten to the point where I almost don’t care if I get a single present on those days…well, “almost.” I mean, what kind of sad pathetic loser would I be if I didn’t get 1 Christmas present, right? Anyway, as you get older you seem to go through different phases in terms of the gifts that you get from people. I think this is partially because as we get older we all get increasingly harder to shop for, which lumps everyone’s gift-giving ideas into 1 or 2 distinct areas. When you’re 5, you are so easy to shop for. Toys, video games, and anything with a Ninja Turtle on it are all gold, but those days can’t last forever.

Bam!

For example, there was one Christmas when I was 11 or 12 where I got like 4 duffel bags from various people. It’s a smart present for a kid who was playing on a million sports teams and needed something to haul around all his junk back and forth to different practices and games, but 4 from 1 Christmas? For the record, I think my parents forgot to coordinate on that particular gift that year (thus both getting me one), and I think I got 1 each from an aunt and I think maybe my Grandma as well. Once I hit puberty, aftershave seemed to be the gift de jour from my aunts, uncles, and more distant relatives that I only saw a couple times a year. As a 14 year old, I had enough aftershave products on top of the dresser in my room that you would have thought you just walked into a Macy’s or something.

At some point, hooded sweatshirts became the go-to gift idea for me. This was perfectly fine because I love hoodies. During high school and college, I can hardly ever remember wearing actual “jackets,” as when the weather turned cool enough I would just start whipping through my hoodie rotation. When I was working my way through college for the Rec Sports Department, I think I had a different UMBC hoodie for every day of the week. This “gift phase” started when I was about 15 or 16, and it ended…well, actually it’s still going in some ways. For example, I probably haven’t gotten a hoodie from my parents since I was a teenager, but I can think of occasions where my siblings, Krissy’s parents, and her brothers have all bought me hoodies over the last few years. (Even Krissy has bought me a few despite knowing I have a closet full of them. This is as much because she loves shopping for athletic apparel as anything else.) And why wouldn’t they? They are affordable (even the relatively expensive ones), sensible (they know I go to the gym and play sports), and it’s just about all anyone sees me where when I’m not at work.

If they're good enough for the president of the motherf****** USA, they're good enough for me.

This has become a double-edged sword…take a look at our appartment’s coat closet and it is lined wall to wall with hooded sweatshirts. Including fleeces and zipper-downs, by my count as of yesterday I owned 17 hoodie-like things. Krissy’s side of the closet has at least that many as well. The problem is that we all eventually have to become grownups, and you only get to wear a hoodie so many days of the week when that happens. It was time to do a little bit of spring cleaning on that closet…but where do you begin?

To start, I decided that it would be stupid to get rid of my favorites, which included a hand-me-down black UMBC hoodie that Pat left in his office after he stopped working there (I ended up getting his job and, consequently, the sweatshirt), a grey Nike zipper-down, and a blue Old Navy fleece. I also couldn’t bring myself to get rid of an older white Adidas hoodie that Krissy had gotten me as a gift (even though there is some kind of stain on the sleeve that no amount of bleach can get out). Similarly, I decided against things I had gotten as recent gifts, like a couple of Under Armor hoodies, a Caldwell College hoodie, a blue and red Nike zipper-down, and a black Jordan hoodie. These are the sweatshirts that I had gotten most recently, but for the most part hadn’t even gotten a chance to wear much yet…thus the reason for this hoodie purge in the 1st place. I also didn’t allow myself to get rid of an old gray Under Armor UMBC hoodie. This was partially because it is Under Armor, partially because it is about as comfortable as any article of clothing I own, and partially for sentimental value…the hoodie was a gift from my old UMBC boss, and it kind of reminds me of a simpler time when what I didn’t make in money I made up for in free clothes, shaving cream, and other swag.

There were a couple of others mixed in there as well, but that didn’t leave a lot of options for what I could get rid of. 2 were pretty easy choices: a nondescript blue fleece and an equally nondescript blue hoodie that I think I had gotten as gifts from my Grandma and Krissy’s Grandma, respectively. After that it got tougher…a gray Quiksilver sweatshirt that I wore the heck out of during high school and college, a darker gray Old Navy fleece that I also wore a ton in college (mostly because it did a good job of covering up my neck-acne…sigh), and a size XL gray Adidas UMBC hoodie that I only wore a couple times ever because it was ginormous on me (it was another work gift though and a really nice sweatshirt…if only I had been given a “shmedium”).

So, there you have it: originally 17 sweatshirts cut down to 12. That’s still a lot of hoodie and hoodie-like articles of clothing, but I reduced my sweatshirt count by about 30%, which freed up some much needed closet space. It also consequently will allow me to have less of an aneurism when I need to pick out a sweatshirt to wear since I have fewer things to choose from in the 1st place. And yet this all has the smell of futility to it…odds are that people will continue to buy my hoodies, and those unused hangers will have new sweatshirts on them in no time. I guess there are worse things to complain about though. Here’s to never growing up!