It’s cold in Massachusetts right now. Not North Dakota cold, but pretty cold, nevertheless. And, as I’ve mentioned, my old winter coat is no longer a viable option. Not only am I too big for it, it’s also ripped at the zipper and been sent back to North Face for repair. A normal person might just tell me to buy a new coat and soldier on, but that normal person might not know how broke I am / how much I love my North Face. It might not be surprising, then, that I’ve managed the winter thus far with just a fleece jacket, the one with the cigarette burn in the left arm that vents like an ice luge right up my sleeve. I’m nothing if not determined.

It was ten degrees when I pulled up to my parents’ house this past Sunday, clad in an equally inappropriate winter garment and with wet hair to boot. My mom, being a mom, kind of freaked out. Midway through our visit, she disappeared into the basement and returned, some fifteen minutes later, the proud bearer of a lightly-used (by her), puffy, white coat.

White. WHITE!

w h i t e

There are seven hundred and fifteen pictures of me on Facebook, and the only ones where I’m wearing white were taken on my wedding day. Other than that, in twenty-something years of dressing myself, I’ve never voluntarily worn white. I’m really more of a black girl: black tank tops, black socks, and, yes, black underwear. I bought a tan sweatshirt a couple months ago. That was branching out. So the idea of wearing white ANYTHING, much less a GIGANTIC WHITE COAT, is just about as appealing as sporting my skin inside-out.

That said, it’s really been pretty cold here. So I took it.

Seriously, I feel like a cross between the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and Pippi Longstocking. It’s like having some other person’s body, or trying to cook in somebody else’s kitchen. I mean, God, I love my mom, but this coat is like the worst thing I’ve ever worn in my life. North Face! Hurry back with my jacket! I promise to be slim enough to wear it when it comes!!