Pajamas and Capes and Christmas · 26 March 2011
Recently, a reader (real, not imaginary) commented that he was willing to loan me his cape for when I don my superhero persona and write. He was, of course, referring to me being MediocreMan™. So naturally, I put tongue in cheek and responded that I took the superhero writing business seriously and actually wear my own long underwear and cape when I sit at the computer to compose. Which is, of course, ludicrous. As a matter of fact, I wear my own custom-made superhero costume when I write. (If you heard that scream, it was just my wife calling me a liar. But that is a different story.)
In reality, I just write in my normal clothes. But I suppose, that someday, I might like to have a custom-made costume. One which would not look anything like the pajamas we wore when we were kids. Which brings me to my third Christmas story of the year.
When we were kids, my brother, Russell, and I used to wear our pajamas all day on Christmas. Or at least we would wear them as long as we were allowed to do so. My own kids do this too, so it is nothing unusual. The unusual thing was the state our pajamas were always in.
With The Mindboggling Mrs. Miyoshi as their mother, Thing 1, Thing 2, and Thing 3 do not get the chance to wear out their pajamas. They just wear them for a year or so and then they get new ones. Thing 2 just wears athletic shorts and a T-shirt so his never get worn out anyway. He just grows out of them. When they get too small, The Mindboggling Mrs. Miyoshi just replaces them with new ones. The shorts are always a dark color and the T-shirts are always white, so he is happy thinking he is always wearing the same pajamas that he has worn since he got out of the ones with the footies.
Thing 1 and Thing 3 just wear long pajama bottoms. Thing 3 does not wear a shirt, but he usually comes to the Christmas tree and present opening with his bathrobe. Or at the very least, he puts on a T-shirt for pictures. Thing 1 is a college student so it seems that all he wears is pajama bottoms and T-shirts. All the time. I do not know if he actually changed clothes while he was home for Christmas break or if he has several weeks worth of pajama bottoms.
Anyway, back to the original story.
When my brother and I were young (about 12 or so), we wore our pajamas all the time like my kids do. We did not have athletic shorts and T-shirts or just pajama bottoms. We had the matching pajamas with Spider Man or some super hero on the front over a solid color pajama top and bottom. We always wore them until they were really comfortable. That is, until they became see-through. Either by becoming thread-bear or holey. Or both. I do not know if that process took a few days or a few years, but I do know we had them because our parents have pictures of us wearing those pajamas.
We never wanted new ones because the old ones were so comfortable. Even the pajamas with a hole the size of the leg on one side and so threadbare on the other leg as to be see-through. I can still see my mom rolling her eyes after we refused to let her get us new pajamas at least for Christmas. But she knew as well as we did that if she did get us some new ones, they would just rot in the original packaging until the others disappeared, so she never did get us any new pajamas. As a matter of fact, I am sure we just kept wearing those same pajamas until they disintegrated. After all, we would put our legs through the body hole and then into the piping at the bottom of the almost non-existent legs. So it is not too much of a stretch of the imagination to see us putting on the last vestiges of pajamas even when mere threads were left.
I miss those old pajamas. If they had not disintegrated, I think they would be the ones I would don in the mornings when I write. They would be the ones I wear at Christmas each year even as an adult. I may not really put on long underwear and a cape when I am writing as MediocreMan, but if I had the old worn out pajamas from my childhood, I might wear them. With a cape. Or maybe, I will get the custom-made superhero costume one day.
© 2011 Michael T. Miyoshi
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