Pajamas

This morning was a real benchmark for me. It was one of those mornings that shape the rest of your life. There are things that occur only once every 64 years and they should be recorded as I am doing now in this blog. This morning I wore my pajamas outside, to walk the dog and not just any pajamas. These were shortie pajamas. I held myself up for public scrutiny and ridicule as I strolled the sidewalk in front of my house with the dog as I kept telling her to "Please go poop" so we can go back inside. This wasn't just a spur of the moment decision but was very practiced and calculated plan on my part. I awoke at 6 am and said to myself "Today is the day!" and I did it, in front of God and everybody.

This all started about sixty years ago when my Mother first made me start wearing pajamas, although I can't remember what they looked like but they probably had cowboys and Indians on them. I wore tops and bottoms for the next 10 years when I noticed that my brother Bill was no longer wearing his tops, just his bottoms. Seems like it was a college thing and would probably lead to no good but I got rid of my tops. What if his dorm room caught on fire and he was forced to run outside in just his bottoms. I figured that everyone would point at him and laugh. My Dad always wore tops and bottoms but he always wore some type of bathrobe over them as I never just saw him in pajamas. He always had slippers on and I could only see the bottom 16" of his pajamas. My Dad was a smoker and he was lying down on the bed some Sunday morning reading the paper and smoking. The ashtray was on the seat for my mothers dresser and my Dad fell asleep. The cigarette fell out of the ashtray, on to the cloth seat and set it on fire. My Mom called the fire department and they sent a couple of pumpers to the house in short order. Meanwhile, my Father woke up and grabbed the seat and took it outside as it was merely smoldering. He knew what to do because, like the men that showed up with the pumpers, he also was a volunteer fireman. The firemen let me take sand out of my sandbox and put it on the seat to put out the fire. I was thrilled and my Mother was mortified to see what was happening to her beautiful chair. How would she be able to put her makeup on next time? All though the scene was very hectic and chaotic, I was very worried for my father as he was being forced to stand outside, in front of all those people, in his pajamas. What was to become of him? I took some solace in the fact that he had his bathrobe on and people would only be able to see the bottom 16" of his legs.

The Navy would not let me bring my pajamas to boot camp and worse of all they expected me to sleep in my skives. Can you just imagine the shock to this poor country boy from South Dakota when they made me ship my pajamas back home? Sleeping is skives stuck and from then on I rejected the idea of wearing pajamas. In case of a night time fire, I always had my pants, fully loaded with keys, billfold etc., on standby and within arms reach so I wouldn't be required to stand for public scrutiny outside in my skives. Through the years my wife would buy me lots of nice pajamas. Some for winter and short ones for summer and try and get me to wear them. I wouldn't even think about it until about 6 months ago and I started wearing a pair of short, summer ones. They were actually very comfortable and it was all OK as long as my fully loaded pants were within arms reach. The neat thing about them was that they had pockets and I could walk around with my cell phone or keys in the pockets. They don't have rear pockets so I can't carry my wallet which really worries me. What if I need to be identified or prove who I am if I get caught outside in my Pajamas. If I was a cop at a fire or something and some old guy was walking around in pajamas, without a shirt, I would want to know who he was. See, a valid reason for carrying an ID at all times, not paranoia as some of you may be thinking.

I have friends who wear their pajamas outside all the time. Some even go jogging in their pajamas with their wives who are also in pajamas. A little weird if you ask me. I decided that if they could do that then I could try to wear mine outside also. A couple of days last week I got so far as to go out in my pajamas but with my pants over the top. Not bad. A little real progress here. Today I said "Hang it" and out the door the dog and I went. She piddled and we went back inside then I went back out to retrieve the paper which was next to the road. Five or 6 cars went by and I waved to each and I even survived two, female, college track runners going by and saying "morning". It wasn't so bad and no one really made fun of me. I lived and headed back inside to wake my wife so I could tell her about my latest daring do. As I went upstairs to awake her it I noticed that my fly was not buttoned.