Everyone has something they just can’t live without. For my 11-year-old son Jay, who has Asperger’s syndrome, there are two things: an old pair of extremely worn navy blue sweatpants (without any seams or tags, of course), because they are comfortable, and his collection of comic books. Jay wakes up, pulls on his navy blue sweatpants (without any seams or tags, of course) and immediately goes to his stack of comics. My boy doesn’t just read these books, he devours them. He is a walking encyclopedia of superhero facts and trivia. The boy who has trouble lining up the numbers in his multiplication problems has no difficulty placing superheroes in columns by their superhuman, supernatural and paranormal abilities.
Since my boy is so fond of graphic novels, I thought I’d chronicle my recent attempt to disappear his extremely worn navy blue sweatpants (without any seams or tags, of course) … comic book style. Yes, I actually had the nerve to ask my son to take off his practically standing-on-their-own navy blue sweatpants (without any seams or tags, of course) and put on a pair of shorts instead. After all, it is now a gazillion degrees outside.
Here’s how it went down:
When we last saw our hero, Captain Sweatpants had been forced to remove his faithful navy blue sweatpants (without any seams or tags, of course) and don a new spring/summer uniform consisting of elastic shorts (without any tags) and Crocs with socks (without any seams, of course). Our hero, freshly cool and comfortable, is now ready to save the world from the clutches of evil. Little does he know that the arch-villain he’s about to encounter is his very own mother, better known as Evil Mom.
(Insert evil villain laughter here.)
As our saga unfolds, Evil Mom has gone into super-hydro spring cleaning mode. Drawing power from an unknown force, she relentlessly attacks the closets. No drawer goes untouched. As if she were possessed, she methodically unfolds shirts, sizes them up and tosses them into one of two piles: “Donate” or “Trash.”
Suddenly, a third pile appears and starts to grow quite large. Gasp … it is the dreaded Trying-on-old-clothes-to-see-if-they-still-fit pile, the worst of them all.
In an effort to distract Evil Mom and get out of this tedious, painful labor, which fastening buttons most certainly is, our hero engages the help of his little sister.
Captain Sweatpants: “I’ll act as a decoy while you move the clothes to the Trash or Donate piles.”
Little Sister agrees, as she knows it is only a matter of time before Evil Mom gets to her closet. A woman with normal vision might miss such a small speeding target, but Evil Mom is anything but normal. (Besides, she overheard them talking.)
Evil Mom: “I admire your resourcefulness … but your powers do not work on me! Try this on!”
Defeated, our hero is pressed to try on shirt after shirt, pants after pants. With every button our hero’s superpowers are sapped further and further, yet Evil Mom pushes on.
Finally, no longer able to take another minute of this torture, our hero retreats to his safe space, his closet.
POW! BAM! WHAP!
Five minutes later, our hero reappears – calm, collected and wearing his extremely worn navy blue sweatpants (without any seams or tags, of course).
Captain Sweatpants: “Listen. I am done trying on clothes. I don’t need anything but these sweatpants, which have no seams or tags, of course.”
And with that our hero flops down onto his bean bag chair, picks up one of his comic books and happily plunges in, oblivious to the rest of the world.
Evil Mom, defeated, retreats to her office and logs on to her computer. Because, like the old saying goes, if you can’t beat them, buy them a new pair of navy blue sweatpants (without any seams or tags, of course).
