WEARING BILL'S SHIRTS

We bought our house from a man named Bill.

Bill was a big guy, taller than my husband, Fred, who is six-foot-two. (I'm five-foot-five.) Bill remodeled the main level of our house when he lived here.

Bill intended to keep the house at the time, so he remodeled things to suit himself. There's no dishwasher, because he ate out a lot. He chose colors he liked; our bedroom has very good quality plaid carpet, instead of the cheap beige stuff that you typically get when someone is remodeling to resell. And some stuff is up kinda high, because Bill was tall.

I think of Bill often; when I'm considering changing the lean on the shower head, for example, and wondering if it's worth it if I have to go get a chair to stand on to do it.

The closet shelf in our room is very high. It's not a shelf you'd use regularly. It's more of an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of shelf.

Bill left behind some shirts on this shelf. Five or six short-sleeved, button-down shirts.

Bill left other stuff, too. There were a couple of tables in the carport that he said belonged to his carpenter, and that the carpenter would be coming to pick up. We waited for the carpenter to do this, saw the carpenter with his kids at our school and reminded him, and waited some more. Finally, after about six months, we put the tables out at the curb with a "FREE" sign. They were gone within two hours.

Bill also left a couple of garden hoses, which he never came back for and which we still use. I love them. Like everything Bill, they are good quality, not the cheap ones with a tendency to kink, which we usually have.

And then there are Bill's shirts.

I'm sure that Bill just overlooked these shirts, because the shelf is so high. For a long time, I fully intended to return Bill's shirts. I thought, I'll call the realtor and get his number, and we'll call and let him know.

Then I thought, Oh, too much time has gone by, it would be embarrassing--I'll just get the address from the realtor and mail the shirts to Bill. Or, I'll mail them to him at our address and the package will get forwarded to his new house.

We've been here nine months now. We still have Bill's shirts.

At some point, I hung them in our closet. And at some point, Fred started wearing them.

Fred and I are not snappy dressers. "Frumpy and frazzled" is our usual look. I've given up, because it's hard enough to get the kids dressed without worrying about myself too.

Fred was never, ever a nice dresser. He likes old jeans and T-shirts. He wears his clothes long after the point where most middle-class Americans would put them in the ragbag. He would be horrified at the thought of spending more than ten dollars on a pair of shoes (his "good" shoes are some his mother bought him over ten years ago).

This very morning (this is true) Fred took a pair of jeans that had a big rip in one knee, and he cut them off to make, well, cut-offs. I don't think people wear genuine, homemade cut-offs any more. I remember seeing them in high school.

After cutting off his new cut-offs, Fred put them on, got on his bike, and rode off to work. A T-shirt, white socks, and a pair of black slip-on "dress" shoes from Wal-Mart completed the ensemble.

It's not that Fred wouldn't like nice clothes, really, it's just that he couldn't bear spending the money on them, or taking the time to shop for them even if we had the money. So it's been a treat for him to have Bill's shirts in his closet. Like everything Bill, these are NICE shirts.

Last weekend was District Annual Conference for Fred. He wore Bill's shirts.

Fred came home and said, "People keep complimenting my shirts. No one ever complimented my shirts before." I'm sure that Fred's peers are surprised to see him in something that doesn't look as if it came from the Wal-Mart sale bin.

I never intended to keep Bill's shirts. I feel guilty about it, and I think Fred would be embarrassed if he ran into Bill and Bill recognized his shirt on Fred. (A couple of them have fairly distinctive prints.) But I just didn't get around to sending them back, and now it's been so long it would be embarrassing, and, and . . .

Thanks for the shirts, Bill.