The Zipper

I’m not a klutz. Granted, we all have times when our actions are less than Fred Astaire-like, but in general, I can walk and chew gum at the same time. In fact, at times I’m downright graceful.

I’m also not stupid. I graduated from a well-respected university, have an excellent command of the English language and received good grades throughout my life.

But even graceful, intelligent people screw up, and when we do so, well...we blog about it.

My daughter’s jacket was broken. Now, first of all, I should say, this is a winter jacket she’s been wearing all season that neither one of us recognized. It was a color I don’t remember buying, with a hood of fake fur she’s never asked for. Frankly, I thought it might have been left in our house by a friend. And since it was hanging on our coat rack for months, I decided that if it wasn’t purchased by us, possession was nine-tenths of the law and it was ours now. Especially because it was a coat my daughter actually wanted to wear (as opposed to all the others she studiously avoided, regardless of the temperature).

So when she started wearing it, I was happy. I didn’t even mind that she wasn’t zipping it because, well, people have different body temperatures and I decided if she were cold enough, she’d zip it.

And then we had the deep freeze. The one where our thermometers are in the negative numbers and the wind chill takes your breath away. It was during this lovely blast of Mother Nature’s wrath that she and her youth group were going into New York City to feed and clothe the homeless. There was no way she was going with an open coat.

The only problem was that apparently the zipper was actually broken. The slider opening was closed, preventing the insert pin from being able to be inserted. The jacket was unzippable.

Normal people would say, “Go find another jacket.” Which I did. But I was also stubborn and decided I could fix the jacket by opening the slider. It had originally been open. Something just squeezed the two sides together, which meant I should be able to open them again. Only I couldn’t.

So then I forgot that I was a smart and graceful person and did something stupid and klutzy. I took a steak knife and tried to open the slider. The only thing I succeeded in opening was my thumb.

Which was no help at all for the zipper.