Before we get started with the regularly scheduled blog post, last week was my 12-year Bitter Blogiversary. You should probably congratulate me on being bitter for 12 years now. Back to your regularly schedule blog post.

My son is adopted, and his story is quite interesting. After I get famous from writing my first novel and selling my blog to the highest bidder, I plan on writing his story, and selling that to the highest bidder. I will give you a few tiny details. He is part white and part black, so when people see him with me, of Scottish descent, my wife, of Irish and English descent and my daughter of both of those descents, they don’t quite know what to make of him. We get some of the funniest questions.

Since he is a football player and, we hope, a future NFL player, people often say, “Hey, have you seen the Blind Side?” Yes, we have, and no, his situation isn’t very similar to that movie, especially since he’s lived with us since he was 3 days old and legally our son since he was six months old. (Though we fully expect him to make the NFL, so I can retire and live in his pool house.)

As previously mentioned, he is a football player. He is 6 feet tall (still an inch shorter than me, for now) and between 240-250 lbs. depending on if he is in-season or off-season. He lifts weights and dominates me in wrestling or tackling me casually in the hallway.

Since he is young and cool, my wife likes to shop for clothes and shoes for him, instead of me, all the time. She always finds great deals and some nice clothes and shoes. The problem is that he is pretty Picky Stanicky, and he’s going through his clothes phase right now, so something he liked yesterday, he doesn’t like today. Clothes will languish in his closet for a while, because just like anyone else, he just has his favorites. Every season or so, my wife will make him go through his clothes and decide what to keep and what to donate.

Since he has no younger siblings, we would just give his clothes to his cousins, or to the Goodwill. But now that he’s 16, he’s well out-grown his cousins (and Goodwill for that matter). Besides, it’s hard for us to give them to the Goodwill when we have a much more deserving person to give them to.

Me.

Most families have a system in which the older kid gets nice new clothes that get passed down to the younger kids. They call those clothes hand me downs.

In my family, we call those hand me ups. It’s when the youngest sibling is spoiled with really nice clothes that he doesn’t want, and then when he gets rid of them, dad gets to go through his pile of leftovers, like my wife goes through sale racks.

My wife will buy him some clothes, without him going (which he hates to do anyways) and she will buy him something that he might like. When he tries it on, and it doesn’t fit, he doesn’t like it, or it’s not quite on trend, she then turns to me. Do you want to try this on? It saves her the time of having to return it, and on that rare occasion, I get a new with tags piece of clothing.

And just like that, I have a closet full of hand me ups. Sweatshirts, shirts, and even shoes that are “slightly used”. There are rules to the hand me ups though. Once in a fire red moon, my wife will actually get me something directly. If that shirt is actually cool enough for him, he will abscond with it in a couple of ways. Either my wife “accidentally” mistakes a shirt of mine for his and puts it in his pile, or he just take it outright.

Another rule is that if he needs the shirt, shoe, or other item at any time for any reason, he may either go into my dresser and sieze the item with no notice at all, or ask for the item temporarily at the time of his choosing. Often, I will say to him, “Wow, that looks just like my shirt.”

For instance, he gave me a pair of his leftover shoes, at least three years ago. This pair of shoes is a pair that I wear almost every day to work. When he joined his friend’s city league basketball team, he needed a pair of basketball shoes. The shoes that I had been wearing every day for 3 years was his pair of basketball shoes. He repossessed the shoes for the temporary use of basketball once a week for the next two months.

IE; Always be ready to give His Majesty his generous gift back to him at a moment’s notice, without complaint.

If you didn’t think the boy was the most generous hand me upper ever, he even gifted a couple of pairs of shoes to his grandfather, my father. My father still wears them today. I wouldn’t be surprised if my son eventually asked for those shoes back, if they were to become cool retro vintage shoes by some miracle.

Thems the rules. I’m just a peasant, living in the boy’s world, and I’m lucky he grants me permission to use his clothes and shoes from time to time.

Is this just me and my house, or do hand me ups happen in your house too? Or are most of you less bitter people that do the normal hand me downs.

Let me know in the comments. While you are commenting, go ahead and enjoy some Bitter Friday Giftures…

Before we start…

I have a lot of plans after my best-selling novel…

One of those plans is…

Then, I plan to sell the rights to my son’s story…

A question we often get about my son…

His mission right now…

Since he is so busy…

But he is a little Picky Stanicky…

Instead of having to return items…

My wife allows me to pick through his closet…

From time to time…

As long as I obey…

ARRRGGGHHHHH

Bitter Hand Me Ups Ben