Covered

I’m a big fan of As Seen on TV things, in fact I’m known to piss away money on just about every product they can throw at me. It’s a big joke in this family, my weakness for those things.

I was never impressed with the Snuggie, however, and the jingle makes me cringe.

I am impressed with their marketing. Who would have thought those things would be such a hot selling item? The stores around here, they knew. Starting at halloween they had mountains of them for sale. Intuition or whatever you call that inner voice said, buy one of those stupid things because there will be none left a week before Christmas and you will want to send that to someone. I resisted buying one until I saw all of those stacks of Snuggies dwindle down to nothing.

Sure as shit I did find myself driving around looking everywhere for the blanket with sleeves to give my mom. I don’t know why I thought I had to get it for her, but by the time I found one on Amazon.com, I had pretty much convinced myself that my mom would freeze to death in her house without it.

Then I wanted to get one for Blane. Now that’s bat shit crazy because we don’t want or need another blanket in the house. We have stacks of throws in a basket behind the sofa and there is no room for another.

So why did I buy him an electric throw for Christmas?

One thing in particular I haven’t wanted in this house is an electric blanket. It’s not about the fire hazard or that we don’t have room for it, it is about an aversion to them. I don’t even like seeing them in stores. I know that sounds crazy, but when my dad was dying in the hospital he kept asking everyone to bring him an electric blanket, that he was so cold.

I knew hospitals don’t allow them and he was too sick to understand that or to remember that he had already asked for it a million other times.

So I hate electric blankets because they remind me of a dying wish that was not fulfilled.

And this has been sixteen years since my father passed.

So while looking for that Snuggie thing, I got to go near the electric blanket section in the store and I had my usual gutted feeling. Then I thought, I have got to think about this differently. I grabbed one and bought it.

Got home, wrapped myself in that thing and felt almost as if I’d gotten a hug from my dad.

I went out the next day and bought more “hugs” for Christmas. One for Blane, one for my son, one for his wife. They loved them. It was a great gift, and probably way better than a Snuggie.

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