Reaching a new low with hand me downs

I was the youngest member of my family growing up. The baby of the family. My only sibling was an older brother. You learn a lot being the youngest. And your life experience can be radically different compared to the other members of your family in many aspects. Take for instance, hand-me-downs. As the youngest, you get used to them. Admittedly, I actually got excited about them at times. Many a day I would enter the hallway of my junior high wearing a Grand Funk Railroad t-shirt- passed down to me long after anybody could ever remember doing the “Loco-Motion.” I wore my brother’s tennis shoes, faded blue jeans, and the T-shirts of his latest cast-off rock and roll band of that era. Dad passed along his Sunday suits and dress shoes he no longer needed. And I wore my brother and dad’s clothes proudly. To her credit, Mom would ask me if she could take me to buy some new stuff but most of the time I politely declined. Old habits die hard. Still today I can’t stand to see a good pair of pants, sneakers, or a shirt go to waste. My current favorite pair of winter shoes came from a yard sale and cost all of twenty-five cents. One quarter. And I’ve had them for over three years now and I wouldn’t trade them for a hundred quarters. (Twenty-five dollars.) I also have a pair of tennis shoes that I’ve owned for seven years now. Because they were old and worn, I took them with me to the Dominican Republic on my first mission trip there in 2005. And when I return to the Dominican in the summer of 2009, they will accompany me again. But the true purpose of this column is to admit to you, the reading public, that I have reached a new low. Recently I walked into my sixteen-year-old son’s bedroom and he asked, “Why are you wearing my shirt?” His assessment was accurate. I have resorted to wearing the hand-me-downs of my own son. To the outside world it may seem ludicrous, but to me it makes perfect “baby of the family” sense. The oldest son is growing so fast that he outgrows his stuff before it’s worn out. The middle son hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet so I fill in the gap by wearing the outgrown clothing until the youngest two Stroupes are physically mature enough to fill the void. But alas, this hand-me-down phenomenon has reached depths previously deemed unfathomable even by me. Recently I opened my underwear drawer and immediately noticed a strange pair of black boxer/briefs looking at me. We stared at each other for what seemed like several minutes, neither willing to blink. “What is this?” I asked a wife in the huskiest, roughest voice I could muster. Answered she, “It’s your son’s underwear. He says they don’t do it for him. I thought you might like them.” You kiddin’ me? A man’s gotta draw the line somewhere. But instead of drawing a line I made a bee-line for the bathroom and tried on the rebel pair of undies. And I’ll be honest with you, I like them. And now I wouldn’t trade them for 100 quarters. (Twenty-five dollars.)