Sans Fig Leaf

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"When it rains..."

1 February, 2001

I have been trying not to get stressed out over the job situation. My employer has been purchased by a larger company. Things are changing. Jobs are changing. Responsibilities are changing. Lay-offs are coming, they've made that clear. They just won't say when, how many, or who.

Michael's place of employment has had some lay-offs over the last year and there will probably be more coming.

With all of this uncertainty in the air, little things which would ordinarily be minor annoyances suddenly became major irritants. And they seem to be happening all at once.

For instance, I found a hole in the right sleeve of my leather jacket. I've had this jacket for about 9 years, so it isn't surprising that it's worn out. But I wasn't planning on buying a new coat just now. No, higher on my list was a new suit (so I would be ready for job interviews) and maybe a better case for carrying samples of my work to show off at those job interviews.

And replacing the jacket opens up a can of emotional worms. It's styled as a classic motorcycle jacket, but a little fancier. There's a removable winter lining, for example. So I have used this jacket as my fall, winter, and spring coat for all these years. I've carefully cleaned it with saddle soap twice a year, and rubbed it with generous amounts of mink oil four or five times a year since I first bought it.

Ray and I bought matching jackets some years back. We were celebrating something, though I have to confess that I don't remember what it was. Almost every time I hang the jacket up, though, I remember that day in the store when we were trying on coats, deciding what to get to celebrate. Ray's smile was a little goofy. I don't think he had ever purchased anything like that before.

The following summer Ray bought me a new hat. It was a black leather baseball cap, which went well with the jacket. Once it was properly rubbed with mink oil, it became the perfect hat for our rainy autumns and springs.

Before we bought the jackets, I had worn another black leather jacket. It had originally belonged to my friend, Darrell. One of Darrell's roommates had knocked the jacket off the coat rack, and the sleeve landed on a heat register, where it was slowly cooked. The sleeve wound up with the horrible-lucking pucker. You could force an arm through it, but it wouldn't lay straight and it was very uncomfortable.

Julie barely talked Darrell out of throwing the jacket away. She spent days--maybe weeks--rubbing leather restorer into the sleeve. Slowly the leather softened. Slowly the puckering smoothed away.

By the time she had made the jacket wearable again, and looking almost as it had originally, Darrell had bought himself a new coat. He told Julie to keep it, and Julie gave it to me. It kept the rain off, and I've been told I looked good in the black.

So between that one and the newer one, I've been wearing a black leather jacket for about 14 years now. Until I noticed the hole in the sleeve, I didn't realize how much of my personal identity was wrapped up in the jacket. My first working day after vacation, I decided to dig out one of the other coats from the back of the closet. There was another leather and suede coat that Ray had picked up somewhere that fit and seemed heavy enough for the weather we've been having.

I went out to catch my bus to work. Some minutes after I left the house, Michael went to the same bus stop to head across town for an appointment. He didn't recognize me in "the wrong jacket" he said.

And in some ways it is the wrong jacket. I am so used to the other one that this one seems wrong. Its weight is different. Its fit is different. To be honest, it actually fits me better than the black leather biker jacket did. I've gain a bit of weight in the last nine years, you see.

But I was used to it. It's familiar. It's comfortable. It reminds of a lot of good times. It kept the rain off.

It's sort of like my job. I've grown used to working in the same place. It's familiar territory. It reminds of of a lot of good times.

But in some ways it doesn't fit any more. I suspected it more than once over the last year. Yet there were so many things about it that I liked. It was comfortable.

The stress right now isn't fun. But I'm convinced now that this is an opportunity. I'll fulfill my contractural obligations, I'll take advantages of the "carrots" they have dangled before me to help them get through this and the next phase of the whole affair, but I know now that this is the end. It was comfortable. It kept the rain off.

But now it's time for something new.