This is What I Have to Say

"Bob, I absolutely refuse to buy you socks for your birthday. You will simply have to come up with other ideas. If you need socks, get them yourself. They are not a luxury item."

"Taylor. It's time. Take off the grey hoodie and put this long-sleeved henley on. You are not 7 years old anymore."

And so that's what I said after my errands this morning. 

Bob's birthday is pretty much always a problem. Years ago, when he needed tools, or had something he enjoyed that needed equipment, like cross-country skiing, I would gather money from the family and splurge on something really really great that, more often than not, was able to double as a Christmas gift. Skil saws, skis, a weight bench...that kind of thing. Now what he does is publish a list that is supposed to work for both events. And inevitably that list has 5 items on it that cost between 5 and 10 dollars each. Well? No MORE! Thank goodness I didn't draw his name for Christmas! I don't know who did, but it's THEIR problem now! 

This is the first year we've drawn. The 5 of us did, $100 limit, I got Taylor. Who wants a 20" monitor for his computer...worth more than $100 but I owe him $40 for last week's Christmas bush purchase. Yes. Bush. It's not a tree. Oh sure, when it's out there on the tree farm, growing out of the ground, shaped gloriously like a Christmas tree, it looks like a Christmas tree. But once you hack off enough lower branches, and you see that it has more than one main trunk growing out of the ground? You end up saying to yourself, "darn, but if this thing isn't really a BUSH!"

Where was I?

Taylor. He wears grey hoodies all winter. Actually, fall, winter and spring. T-shirt underneath. Not a sweatshirt. Not a zip-up hoodie. Just a pull-over hoodie. Grey. He has two shades of grey. And he doesn't wash them often enough for my taste. So I am dragging him kicking and screaming into adulthood and I am buying him other warm, long-sleeved options. He didn't fuss! But then, he's not much of a fusser. I just told him he's too old to dress the same every single day. When people don't know who they are? They describe him thus: "You know...that tall brown-haired kid with the grey hoodie?"

Yup. 

So foot has been put down.