About a week ago a friend gave me a small bag of clothes that her daughter had outgrown. I accepted them with thanks; we are not fancy and hand-me-downs are welcome at our place. It’s the least we can all do to be environmentally cautious. Re-use children’s clothing and pick up good stuff off the side of the road on hard rubbish day.
But there’s a line.
I get the small bag home and the Badoo and I gleefully open it, ready to tuck into a pretty new dress (these bags almost always include a favourite party dress, often hand-painted by a small child as a bonus). But when we saw the contents of the bag, even the Badoo knew that the line had been crossed. Her face crinkled in that disgusted face that a four-year-old does so well.
“It’s pants,” she said.
Yes, I agreed, it’s pants.
Pants.
My friend had given me pair after pair of her daughter’s used pants. Nice pants, carefully washed, but pants. Nothing else in the bag.
We tied the small bag back up and put it in the corner and spent a few days avoiding it. Then the day before rubbish day, I took a photo of some of the pants (as you do) and threw the small bag into the bin.
So, the day after rubbish day, my friend stops me on the school run and says brightly, “how’s the Badoo enjoying the new clothes?”
♥
Added later on: There was some concern in early comments and over on Facebook about my friend reading my post and everyone was all worried. I just wanted to add that OF COURSE I had ‘the chat’ about the pants prior to writing this post. I would never write about a friend on my blog else without having ‘the chat’ first… well, there were a couple of times that I didn’t do that and I HAVE LIVED TO REGRET EACH OF THOSE TIMES VERY, VERY MUCH… so, yes, all is well with my friend (who is probably reading this right now and thinking, “she’s nuttier than I am with my used pants present, that one.”)