Grandma's Red Blazer

We are hosting an ugly Xmas sweater/attire party here on Friday. Cody and I ventured off to Goodwill to see what we could find. We arrived and it was jam.packed. I wondered what was going on and noticed it was 50% off day. Jackpot. We parked across the street and crunched through the snow across the street to the store. It was busy, and to my dismay there wasn't a rack of ugly xmas sweaters with their built in bulbs twinkling or their ugly crochet patterns staring me in the face. I had to actually search through the racks and be creative. I wondered over to the women's sweaters and found my size. I started looking and noticed something that looked familiar. Yup, that was my sweater I donated a few weeks ago. It's so weird to see it hanging there anonymously, storyless, waiting to be taken home again. Then I found three lovely red options that weren't sweaters, but they were going to be perfect. I wondered over to Cody and helped him choose an ugly sweater that wasn't Christmas themed, but we could work with it. We wait in line at the check-out, pay for our stuff, and head out to run the rest of our errands.

A few hours later when we got home I decided to try my Goodwill gear on to make sure it fits and to show my mom what we'd purchased. I slip into the most perfect red blazer with huge shoulder pads and feel right at home. This bad boy was MADE for me. Other than the sleeves being a tad short it fit like a glove. I'm talking with my mom and Cody about the possibilities for this gem when I slip my hands in the pockets and feel slightly alarmed. I feel  in the perfectly placed front pockets, balled up, wadded tissues. I'm praying they're unused. I bring myself to wrap my hand around the entire contents of the pocket and slowly pull it out. I'm holding in my right hand a wad of those off white tissues (apparently never used), a cough drop, and a vitamin c drop. Then out of the other pocket I wrap my left hand around similar contents. More off white tissues, a peppermint, and a Ricola cough drop. I immediately start cracking up and then dread fills me. I'm all of a sudden positive this gorgeous red blazer with shoulder pads for days belongs to someone's deceased grandma.. I never gave it much thought before when I happily made my purchase but now seeing the contents of the pockets I felt a little bad. I felt kind of bad for mocking someone's dead granny who probably happily wore that blazer to Church every Sunday or out shopping or to the beauty shop to get her hair done. The grandma who always had a runny nose, and without fail, passed out peppermint candies.

Here's to Ugly Xmas sweater parties, red blazers, and honoring the poor granny (rest her soul) who allowed me to be on point for my paryt next weekend.