By Ward Deglar
Winter roared in last week with heavy snow and bone-chilling temperatures. That was the signal for me to rummage through the top shelf in the coat closet for gloves. I found a pair, but I also dragged out six individual gloves.
I’m not sure how I do it, but I tend to lose one glove. Moreover, the one I lose is always the left glove. For the first three losses, I thought that was a coincidence. After that, I began to suspect the glove god had it in for me.
I even bought gloves that were duplicates of the one I just lost in hopes I might lose a right one for a change and still have a full pair. Nope. The glove god laughed and pulled the left one out of my pocket and dropped it somewhere in the mall parking lot.
I also learned you can’t wear a right glove on the left hand. That works in surgery with latex surgical gloves, but bulky leather ones just tend to bend your fingers back into a painful arch.
I also bought a package of brown cotton work gloves. For some reason, I never lose those. Same with those ugly horsehide workers gloves that railroad engineers and welders wear. I wear those for heavy yard work and handling rough lumber. Somehow, going to a dress-up dinner wearing locomotive gloves just didn’t seem right.
So, once more, I have a beautiful pair of tan leather gloves that keep my fingers warm and me looking way too cool. Still, I know it’s just a matter of time before I lose the left one. I can already hear the glove god chuckling.
But I have the germ of an idea that might put an end to lost gloves forever. It worked when my kids were little, and it just might work for me.
To keep each kid and their mittens intact, we tied a string from one mitten to the other and then threaded it through the sleeves of their coats. So, even when they took off their mittens, they just dangled there. They even learned how to take their coats off while leaving the mittens carefully threaded through the sleeves.
I have a long leather boot lace that just might do the trick. I just have to figure out how to tie the ends to the gloves.
The only drawback is I won’t be able to stuff my gloves into my pockets like I used to. And, of course, I have to wonder what the glove god has in mind to thwart this plan.
