mittens
by Zero
When I was a first grader I wore a light blue coat, three yellow strips on each arm, with blue mittens. The majority of the time I didn’t actually need anything on my hands, but the mittens were permanent fixtures upon each cuff. The safety pins courtesy of my mother kept them there. It’s only now that that I realize the full insult of this, thinking back on the fact that safety pins came into existence and into the house in order to pin diapers, and these had probably been used on me for that very purpose six years prior. As it was, I was distracted enough by my annoyance that the mittens generally just flapped around as extra, useless appendages. My mother forbid me to remove the pins for fear that I’d lose the mittens.
This all flashed back to me while on a run on the snowy trail, decades after my days of standing at a bus stop on a country road. The temperature was well below freezing and the mittens felt necessary as I made my way out the door, but after about a mile I’m ready to let my fingers be free in the cold, dry air. Now a semi-responsible adult, putting my own mittens in my pocket I wonder about the best way to stow them. I don’t have safety pins to keep them secure, but I have an individual pocket on each thigh. The mittens also come with a clip on their back so that they can be attached to one another as a pair. Together, the mittens don’t fit especially well in a single pocket. But I can’t stand the notion of losing one mitten. A single mitten leaves the other hand out in the cold; no one sells a mitten by itself; I can’t stand the notion of underutilizing the clip or any other feature of outdoor gear. Mostly, it is just that mittens, in a pair, are useful. A singular one is as useful as no mittens at all. So I secure them together, hand in hand, and let them squeeze into my right pocket and hold on for the ride.
