Anecdote: Hanger Theft

Lots of things happened today. I got offered a job. I rejected a guy who asked me out. I admonished a supervisee for not coming into work. I received compliments on my turquoise socks. I heartily wished for bricks to throw through the windows of the selfish, evil car that melodramatically and recklessly drove around me when I was moving over to make way for an ambulance. All and all, quite a day.

But the pinnacle of the drama came when I arrived back at home and when changing out of my work clothes, I discovered that the un-garmented hangers I had left in my closet were gone.

Maybe this doesn't seem like a big deal to you, but if you, like me, have cultivated a collection of hangers, perfectly harmonized to the needs of your wardrobe, this would make you jolly well ticked off. I have a fine-tuned assemblage of hangers, each one selected for a specific garment, chosen to maintain the apparel's shape, texture, and movement, to reduce wrinkles, stretching and crumpling, to indicate its level of importance in my esteem, and to working cooperatively with other hangers around it. A bad hanger can ruin an article of clothing and gums up the process of perusing the rack.

As such, I take hanger-theft very seriously. It is a terrific blow to my beautiful system of clothing maintenance, and requires me to embark upon the grave task of finding a replacement hanger--- and not just any hanger, but one which I can be satisfied will adequately take care of such articles of clothing now finding themselves in limbo.

On this occasion, I had two un-closeted dresses, and two missing hangers that had been present and accounted for in the morning. I had checked.

Upon accusing my mother, she readily and without any degree of shame fessed up to having been too lazy to make the long trek to the laundry room to find her own hangers, and had decided to usurp mine.

!!!!!!!!

She didn't understand why I should care so much as they were old and misshapen hangers. But they were hangers that had been misshapen to the perfect degree wherein they could support the broad shoulders of these specific two dresses. Such is the beauty of hangers. There is a garment for every hanger, no matter how battered. And my two uprooted hangers had found their match, only to be torn unceremoniously from that union and enslaved to the service of poor garment-care.

One day I hope to liberate them.