Skip to main content

shorts guy

so, this is a little bit odd, and just a tad random, but I find it amusing and felt like writing about it.

the kids and I have a little bit of an inside joke. it’s about “shorts guy”, and we look forward to seeing him every ‘band’ morning. shane is in first year band over at the junior high. it is before school for the elementary kids, but at the same time that school starts for the junior high kids. so on tuesday, thursday, and friday mornings, we get to drive him there amid all the other band students and junior high kids. a few blocks from the school, we always pass this one kid. he lives in the neighborhood and walks to school. we call him “shorts guy” because he ALWAYS is wearing basketball shorts. dead of winter, wearing shorts.

anyway, we started looking for him in the mornings, wondering if he was running late or home sick, if we didn’t see him. one morning, after dropping shane off, the rest of us saw him running down the road toward the school, obviously late. Then we started proposing ideas for why he never wore pants. shane thinks they’re all in the laundry and his mom doesn’t wash them. layla thinks it’s because his pants are all hidden in the back of his closet, so he doesn’t see them. or that they’re all stinky. I really hope it’s not that. we’ve also started wagering guesses as to which pair of shorts he would be wearing. micah always guesses green. we’ve never seen him in green shorts, but you never know, I guess.

at any rate, this morning, we started doing all of our usual discussion about ‘shorts guy’, and looking for him walking down the road. when we finally saw him, what a shock! PANTS! I had to get a good look at him, to make sure it was really him, and it was. but he was also wearing a white shirt and a tie! whoa! must be something significant going on today at school. but it gave us all a really good laugh.

I don’t know anything about this kid, other than that he’s in junior high, he lives near the school, and he likes to wear shorts. layla thinks his name is justin, but we have no reason for that. I think she just thought it was a good name. but lately, I’ve taken to praying for him. that he’ll have a good day, that he’ll be successful in his studies, that he’s happy… just simple stuff, but I figure, what the heck. can’t hurt. besides, he makes us smile.

Comments

  1. I wonder if it's possible that Shorts Guy only owns that one pair of pants, and they are his good clothes so he doesn't normally wear them to school. But I am mostly wondering this because I found out today that one of my daughter's classmates is homeless, and I am just distraught about that. I am going to my knees for him and his family too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is crazy! I have seen people in shorts around here once the weather hits the high 40's or low 50's and have to laugh. After as much winter as we have had the 40's feel like summer!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

all comments are moderated. unkind comments will be deleted.

you may like...

for my not-so-american friends

i didn't have an actual roll w/ the green plaid on it, but i found a refill and an empty roll in my junk drawer (yeah, i know, that should tell me something).  but even the empty one says 'scotch' on it.  there you go!  SCOTCH TAPE!

a blue period...

i'm feeling really lazy lately. well, some might think i'm lazy all the time, but it's worse right now. i always get really down on myself when i'm having trouble keeping things organized, when my house is a mess, when we eat mac and cheese for dinner, etc. usually that's appropriate motivation to get me off my butt and make me keep things in some sort of relative order. but night now it's really bad. i don't feel like doing anything. there are toys all over, and i purposely make myself not see them because i just don't want to pick them up. same with the dirt behind the door in the bathroom. the pile of clothes that need to be ironed, the mess in my bedroom, the crap falling out of the drawers in my bathroom, the garage. i don't want to go grocery shopping. i don't want to cook. the floor needs to be swept and mopped in the kitchen and dining room and the sink is dirty. the backyard is a total disaster and i just don't feel like ...

how to clean your room

i was discussing this sort of thing w/ my MIL recently and she said there were some books she had when the boys were young that explained things to kids that adults often tell them to do w/out giving them explicit instructions. so i thought about it and decided to write my own.  i mean, really, if i expect shane to clean his room, i ought to tell him HOW i want him to clean it, so he knows what i expect.  so i wrote them out.  keep in mind, these are 9 year old instructions. they would have to be adjusted accordingly.  i actually don’t expect him to do much less than i would expect of myself.  (bummer for him!) How to clean your room: strip your bed. put all dirty clothes in the laundry basket put all clean clothes in the closet or dresser put all shoes in the rack on the door. pick up everything off the floor and put it on your bed to sort. start by throwing away anything that’s trash. return anything that doesn’t belong in your r...

holiday?

so i’ve had a skeleton of this post bouncing around in my head for a couple of weeks now. i’m not even really sure what the point of it is, or what my opinion on the matter really is, except that it’s something that’s kind of irritating me. have you noticed that christmas has been, more or less, completely deleted? listen to your radio. watch the commercials on tv. read the ads in the paper. nothing. it’s like ‘christmas’ has become a dirty word. now before anyone gets their dander all up, this is not a particularly religiously-inspired post, not that i disagree with the idea that ‘Christ’ should remain the center of ‘Christ’mas.  but that’s not what this is about. i’m a ‘word person’. i love language. i love the idiosyncrasies that that come with spoken and written language. i love that humans have the ability to string letters and words and sentences together to create something beautiful, or funny, or clever, or ANYTHING! it’s just a wonderful thing. i love that we can trace say...

finally!

here are layla’s curtains!  actually up on the window! i have to say i’m quite pleased with myself for actually getting this done.  but i have to give credit where credit is due… so thanks to my MIL for going to the fabric store w/ me and helping me with measurements and all that.  AND, thanks to debbie for letting me use her sewing machine and for ironing all the hems for me!  YAY!!!!