Country Living – The indispensable jacket

So, what’s up with farmers and jackets anyway? And why was it that a simple walk on the farm with a featherless farm puffer jacket created the “great jacket debate” and added to the list of countless unsolved mysteries in my life?

Observing my shivering son, I mentioned that a new jacket may be in order. Not so according to the alpha male, apparently he has a plenty. Hmmm, really? Perhaps this statement needs further investigation. So, with the walls of this big house adorned with hooks and suffocating us with jackets, I set about the big reconnaissance mission to get to the bottom of this slight jacket misunderstanding.

Guys, I kid you not, the alpha male has enough jackets to keep half of Siberia warm! Umpteen of them in restricting shades of khaki, green, black and camouflage. Of course, this does not include the ones in sheds, stuffed in boxes, shoved in drawers or, God forbid, the “going out ones” that are slowly taking over my section of the wardrobe.

How cold do these types of men get anyway? Or is this some sort of underlying addiction/fetish, and should I be caring enough to guide him in the direction of the nearest clinic?

Jackets around here seem to be distant cousins of undies; the holier the better because it creates more comfort (or so I am told) and that makes throwing them out a sin punishable by death – LOL.

It’s big news to be told that each and every jacket serves a distinctly different purpose. Well, just quietly, they all look the same to me. I can no longer trust him to go shopping and buy a much-needed pair of jeans because undoubtedly he will come home with a jacket! Occasional grocery shopping with him at New World in Warkworth can be problematic, as that Hunting and Fishing shop is next door.

He usually sneaks his way over to this testosterone-filled establishment where alpha males seem to hunt in packs and close ranks on women like me.

I tend to creep in like a startled stick insect and head to either the jacket or the gun section, where they can be found affirming to each other how much said item is needed.

So what is my great unsolved mystery? I just wonder why it is that when these blokes need to add to their collection of jackets and guns and so forth that the situation is so desperate it’s almost life threatening if the item isn’t purchased.

However, when a chick asks for a frock, apparently the alpha male cannot exit the bedroom in a vertical position for tripping over the copious amounts we own. Now this might not be too far from the truth, but that’s hardly the point. Point is, us chicks are onto your behaviour, lads, but perhaps that’s why we adore you all, as infuriating as it may be at times. Ha ha ha.

Julie Cotton