The Rest Of The Story

It's still arctic here. It got better for a few minutes yesterday when it snowed, but it's back to Siberia again. Which takes me back to the story...yesterday's story about the fur coat. There is more to the story. As I was saying in yesterday's post, Lou gave me a gorgeous fur coat for Christmas, 2004. Only I had to actually buy it myself, since he was unable to. Now then, back to the story. The coat was on sale, but I was, of course, still concerned about the expenditure. The salesman (the older greek guy), asked me about my old coat, whether or not I wanted to trade it in for a credit on the new coat. I told him the old coat meant an awful lot to me since Lou gave it to me the year our first son was born. I really wanted to keep it, or perhaps have it made into something else, a jacket maybe. He told me to bring it in so he could have a look at it. When I brought it in, he said it was much too old to do anything with it, that it would just fall apart, and I'd be better off trading it in, which is what I did. I think they gave me $900 for it or something, which went towards the new coat. Fast forward to September, 2006, almost two years later. About a week after Lou's memorial I got a phone call from the manager of the fur salon at Marshall Field's, (Macy's now). She said she was calling because they had a fur coat of mine in storage that I needed to pick up. I told her I did not have a fur coat in storage, my coat was in the closet at home, taking my coat to storage in the midst of what WE were dealing with last summer was the furthest thing from my mind! She insisted she had a coat of mine. She went on to say that it had been in storage for two years! Then it clicked in. She was calling about my OLD coat. The one I THOUGHT had been traded in. As it turned out, that is exactly what happened. The coat was NOT traded in, it was put in storage for two years! It mysteriously resurfaced the week after Lou's memorial, isn't that weird? I wonder now if the greek salesman actually did that on purpose, who knows? Having it turn up like that, right after Lou's memorial is like a message of some sort. I told the manager that I really wanted to have the coat restyled, but that the salesman from two years ago had discouraged me, saying it was too old. She said the coat was in great shape and that it would be no problem to have it restyled. So I did. I had it made into a shorter coat with a hood, it's very cute (and warm). So this winter, the first winter without Lou, the arctic winter, I have TWO fur coats from my love to keep me warm. If I can't have him, I guess two fur coats will have to do. Small solace.