I have been on a mission to find the ultimate winter coat for the past 5 or 6 years. I have been using two in the interim, and both are on complete opposite ends of the comfort spectrum. This defies the very meaning of owning a winter coat, which is to keep you comfortable in less desirable weather conditions and hopefully remain pleasing and fashionable to the eye. Let me break it down for you:
Coat #1: One of my grandpa’s old jean jackets. It is a nice piece, and a sentimental one to boot. However, if temperatures drop below 50 degrees and there’s even the slightest of breezes, it provides as about as much warmth as a paper towel.
Coat #2: My black down-filled parka. It is the size of a small car and its weight makes my back hurt if I wear it for too long. 5 minutes into wearing that thing makes me so hot that I begin to hallucinate and feel claustrophobic. It attracts pet hair as if it were made out of lint brush material.
I guess it’s a pretty awesome parka, but cumbersome and way too hot. One time it lodged me into a storefront doorway and the fire department had to come in and unzip it for me so’s I could exscape. It wasn’t pretty. In the summertime it could double as a tent that might sleep two quite comfortably. The jacket’s hood unzips and would double as a twin sleeping bag, not to mention those inside pockets would be great for holding bug spray and energy bars whilst you’d sleep.
The problem here? There’s been no happy medium. I’m like Goldilocks minus all of the “just right” accommodations she discovered while ransacking the home of the 3 Bears. It’s either too hot or too cold.
Hence my quest for the ultimate winter jacket. I’ve been holding out for years, as when I find what I think is the perfect one, I look at the price tag and get the same feeling that I can get for free while wearing my parka for 6 minutes.
Yesterday I hit up Savers for some good deals, and ho boy I found some good deals alright. I found what I believe to be the coat I’ve been looking for all these years. It’s a nice rugged industry-grade coat that is of the perfect thickness and its material appears to be of a pet hair-resistant composite. Awesome.
Now although I went and done bought it, I’m not sure if this is the perfect coat just yet. It’s still too hot out to tell, so I’m gonna wear it to Cub Foods tonight and hop in the popsicle freezer for a while to see what this baby’s got. Keep your fingers crossed.
One other thing that worries me is that I reckon this coat was used in a warehouse environment - it has some big numbers on written it in yellow wax marker, and those numbers are slightly visible at times when I wear it. My first concern is that people are going to think I spilled mustard on my coat and will be pointing it out as if I didn’t notice that I spilled mustard on my coat. It’s the same sort of thing with the “safety lights” in my truck that stayed on for 20 seconds after I locked the doors. Nearly every other damn time I parked that thing in the dark someone would say “Left your lights on!” and it became a pain in the ass after a while to have to explain that no, I didn’t leave my lights on, and that those are there as my truck’s preventative measure to keep me from getting raped.
The second concern about these numbers is that whenever I wear that jacket, I’m going to feel like I’m being tracked. What if these are top secret government numbers, or what if this coat was stolen and somehow ended up in Saver’s inventory? I could very well get my ass kicked wearing this thing.
I could just color over those numbers with a blue marker. That would avoid the mustard stain concerns of others as well as me being wrongfully accused of wearing hot goods (no pun intended).
I’m just trying to stay comfortably warm here. That’s all. If I end up in jail for that, then sue me. But I’ve got that Saver’s receipt, and I’m going to do what the name of the store suggests and save it. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll have it laminated and put on one of those necklace badge thingies so if anyone ever gives me any shit like “hey man, that’s my coat!” I’ll proudly hold up my receipt badge and say “Umm, excuse me. No it isn’t.”
