The Jacket

I'm not exactly sure if this post has anything to do with ADHD, but I'm thinking it has to tie in somehow.

I have a teenage son who wears a jacket every day to school.  And when I say every day, I mean every.single.day.  From the 100+ degree days to the below freezing days.  And it's the same jacket every single day.  It's kind of a mid-weight jacket much too hot for the 100 degree days and not near warm enough for the freezing days.  And he doesn't carry it to and from school on the hot days.  He wears it. 

I did see him take it off for tennis practice, but it went back on after practice for the walk from the courts to the car.  One advantage of him wearing the jacket was I could find him easily in the yearbook because he was wearing The Jacket in every picture.

Notice that his head wasn't even in some of the shots and I could tell it was him by The Jacket.

A few weeks ago he went to scout camp and The Jacket went with him.  I was unpacking his camp trunk last night (that part is probably due to ADHD...I let the trunk sit in my living room for over a week).  I found The Jacket...it was my golden opportunity to get it in the washer because he was at his dad's house.

Before The Jacket went anywhere near my washer I wanted to empty the pockets.  Little did I realize that process would take much longer than anticipated.  Here are the contents of The Jacket.  Two very squished protein bars, a variety I haven't purchased since last fall, several bags of crushed goldfish crackers, lots and lots of folded up paper, about 20 assorted pens and pencils, 2 erasers, some money, a sand like substance I had to dump out that I'm guessing was animal cracker crumbs, and something I absolutely could not identify.  One pocket was filled with short sticks of an unknown substance.  They were about an inch long and about as thick as a crayon.  No one in the house could identify them.  I'm surprised The Jacket was not infested with bugs for all the food that was in the pockets.

I have to say I was very close to throwing away The Jacket and not subjecting my washer to it's leftover contents, but I could not bring myself to do that without my son at home.  Being as attached to The Jacket as he is, it could be very detrimental to our relationship if he came home to a missing jacket.

So I washed The Jacket and also went out and bought him a new jacket.  Of course with it being 100+ degrees out all I could find was a very lightweight workout jacket, but hopefully that will do until the temperature drops a bit and I can find him a replacement jacket.