Let’s allow for my being a bit slow and say I’ve been dressing myself for 68 years. Today was the first time I got hung inside a sweatshirt. I wish I could recreate it for you, but I might not get out alive a second time.

The temperature was in the low 40’s, so my choice of outerwear was the newest sweatshirt, one that I have loved and worn since last fall. Having already brushed my hair, I bunched the shirt up so that I could pop it quickly and easily over my head without disturbing the hair. I should have known better than to try to accomplish two things at once. One does not pull something over one’s hair and expect it to stay the same, except if you have a crew cut. I’d already put my arms in the sleeves and couldn’t find the hole at the neck. I’ll answer the obvious question without your asking – yes, I did start at the big hole at the bottom. Pulling back a bit, I saw sunlight and aimed my big head at it. My elbows were caught. Reverse. Why is the hood now in the way? Start again. Out of my mouth came the words that always denote my extreme frustration, “Come ON!”

John probably heard me in the next room, but he did the safest thing and laid low. If he had come in at that moment, he would have had to turn me inside out to get the shirt unstuck. The second time I pulled back, the sweatshirt was almost all inside out, and I’d lost my arms. Scissors crossed my mind, but with no visible hands, I couldn’t wield scissors. I couldn’t even pick them up. Somehow I escaped completely and glared at the shirt lying on the bed in a heap, inside out.

With gritted teeth, I said, “I can do this!”

Smart man that he is, John didn’t say anything when I went in the office and told the back of his head that I was ready to go walking.

“I got hung up in my sweatshirt,” I explained. “I didn’t think I was going to get out.”

If there were a snicker or a snort, the moving chair covered it. John had survived another extreme test of marital fidelity with flying colors. It’s a good thing I was successful, because John might not have agreed to lead this blind zombie to the creek and back, bound and gagged by a sweatshirt.