Than go shopping for a winter coat.  As many of you know, I don’t tolerate cold well.   Actually, I don’t tolerate cold at all.  I turn into a miserable, bitter person and my teeth chatter so hard that I start sounding like a stereotypical Minnesotan because I am chomping on my vowels as I speak.  It’s truly pitiful.

So, given that my leather jacket has been deemed not quite suitable to sustain me throughout a Pennsylvania weather, I have two choices.  Get a new job in a tropical climate or buy a decent winter coat.  While I wait for job offers from Bermuda, I decided to trek out to the department stores to investigate winter coats.

Some criteria:

Try not to look like the Michelin Man.

Try to look like I have a waist, appendages and some sense of style… as opposed to looking like Jabba the Hut… also similar to the Michelin Man.

Try not to have a dead carcass, i.e. fur, on my back… I already am in trouble for the leather jacket.

Try not to look like I am wearing my grandmother or mother’s coat… no offense, mom.

Must be warm in snowstorms.

We start with the wool coats… a classic – and fairly traditional… and we run into the first problem.  I am shaped somewhat like a Christmas tree… I anticipated this, but a giant wool coat helped to confirm this.  By the time we find a coat that fits my hips…. I should have been born in the 50s…. I have disappeared into Jabba the Hut on top because it’s way too big.    And I refuse to pay $150+ for a coat that then has to be brought to the tailors where I can pay handsomely to have it made to fit.  Also, most of the coats have a serious detail of buttons which make me suspicious that I will look like a Sgt. Peppers wanna be.

Moving on to the down coats, and this is serious Michelin Man territory and also carcass territory, so I am already proving irresponsible.  Short coats all puffa and the sort, make me look like one of the Starbuck’s doughnut holes on a stick.  Not the look I am going for.  And the long coats… well they are starting to look ok….maybe it’s that I have hit maximum capacity on the threshold for pain in coat shopping?  A charcoal, below the knee, down jacket with a belt so that I don’t look like a charcoal Douglas Fir….we are getting somewhere. Marked down 50% and Mom has a 20% off coupon, thanks mom.  Houston, we have a coat.  And I am outta here!

So my new coat combined with my new snow boots – and I am ready for winter.  Bring it on!

And Bermuda, I am still willing and able and wholly desirable for a posting on your lovely island.  The coat will always be useful for trips back home.

As ever,

K.  Quinn