This coat is wool of a different sort, less useful to me, though perhaps more useful in a general sense. It came to me by way of a naked ladies party I had a couple years ago. It is a very high quality coat, Calvin Klein navy wool with leather patches at the elbow and big wooden buttons shaped like little barrels. It is a little outdated, but not quite outdated enough to be retro. I wore it once. The pockets are shallow, and my cell phone fell out in the parking lot as I was getting out of the shuttle at Dunning Toyota. (That's another heartwarming story that ends with some random person going to great lengths to return the phone to me by way of my mother.) I never wore it again.
A high-quality warm coat like this is one of those things that makes me muse about stuff and poverty and distribution of wealth. Like, is there a homeless person in this county who is at risk of dying of exposure, who might benefit from having this coat? A coat which has been hanging unused in my basement for at least a couple of years? And if so, how can we match up people who need stuff with people who have too much? Especially given that a person without a coat also probably doesn't have a cell phone, or access to a computer, or access to any kind of communication network that might start the needed stuff flowing in their direction.
Or is that not what poverty looks like here in Michigan? Maybe the homeless have coats, but the coats are a little outdated (like this one). And if you're poor, does that mean it doesn't matter if your clothes don't make you feel cute? I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that if you're poor and fifteen years old, you still want to look cute. And if you're 50, hey, maybe you can be a little more philosophical. But.
Let me just say it.
I'm in favor of a living minimum wage.
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