Old Faithful

When I was about to head off to college my mom bought me a new winter coat. I got to pick it out myself. I remember looking through the LL Bean catalogue and seeing a puffy blue coat. It looked soft and warm and even had an interior pocket that you could stuff the whole jacket into like a sleeping bag. Having recently finished a semester of camping and studying aboard the Audibon Expedition Institute bus I was into all things camping gear-like. I wanted that coat.

Here is me wearing the blue coat about a year after buying it. This is me and "Dada of Ma'at" skating on the frozen canal in Ottawa for their Winterlude Festival.

Here I am in it again a few years later at Dada of Ma'at's college graduation. Same coat.

And yet again 6 or 7 years ago when I traveled to DC for the Transportation Research Board conference. I was living in LA at the time, but my mom sent the coat down to wait for me at my sister's house in Baltimore. That is perhaps the one time I actually used the self-stuffing pocket feature.

I have worn this coat as a college first year, a graduate student, a single girl, a newlywed, and a mother of two. I even managed to fit my 9 month, hugely pregnant self into that coat twice.

Here I am wearing it just last month while ice sledding with the kids.

That coat has been mine for 16 years now. I did so many things while wearing it. Heck, I even wore that coat while Dada of Ma'at and I gutted and remodeled an old house--a very dirty job. Yet it is still fully functional. A bit discolored in places, sure. I probably should replace it so I can look more respectable, but then again, if it's not broke why fix it?

And wow, LL Bean! Thanks for an amazingly durable product! It certainly was worth the price.

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Note: before you get too appalled thinking all I ever wear is this old raggedy coat, I do have a nice wool dress coat too.