THE OLD CARDIGAN
My husband Dave loves his old cardy.  We met when we were eighteen and, even then, his old cardy was like his old friend.
There is nothing wrong with a cardigan I own several of my own and when they buttoned up correctly they can be quite smart, if a bit old fashioned.
Dave has a horror of anything bright coloured.  His colour palette is beige, grey, taupe, dark green and, if feeling truly reckless, maroon.  His type of cardy is buttoned from a Vee neck to the hem with two small, quite useless, front pockets.  The trouble is, he starts to button from somewhere mid line and invariably gets them mismatched, resulting in a four inch discrepancy at the bottom.
His cardys have been washed so often that they are completely shapeless but Dave has a special way of wearing them with the shoulder seams pulled forward.  This causes the sweater to go halfway up his back and hang limply, dipping at the front into an untidy Vee.  Add to this pants that slide down a few inches, resulting in the crotch hitting mid thigh, and you have the apparition of an unmade bed.
I love this man with all my heart and would not change him for the world but I would like to tidy him up a bit.  Early in our married life I used to knit him sweaters which he wore because he wanted to please me but, the lure of the old man cardy would seduce him back to his old attire.  I have bought him many nice sweaters and sweatshirts which get worn once in a while, but then go back into the closet in favour of his old friend.
Because they get worn day in-day out, the elbows tend to wear through.  Many years ago, living in Port Coquitlam, I got so fed up of his sweater not just having holes, but threads hanging from the elbows.  One day I took the kitchen scissors and cut off the sleeve at the elbow and tossed the nasty old thing in the garbage.  A few days later, as I drove up to the house, which was on a busy main road, there is Sir Galahad helping a damsel in distress fix her car.  He had retrieved the nasty old cardy and was proudly wearing it with half of one sleeve cut off.
A few hours later I not only re-binned the cardy, I poured leftover tomato sauce over it and showed Dave his stack of cardys on the closet shelf.  He admitted that he could probably get along without that particular old friend.
When we go on vacation he puts all the clothes he wishes to take on the bed and I do the packing.  A new comfy cardy always goes with us.  However, a couple of years ago we were cruising with some friends and the habit of the two men is to go and have a light, early breakfast, then bring coffee to the two ladies then, we all go for breakfast together.  One day he woke me with my coffee and he was wearing the nasty old cardy and a pair of shapeless, fleece shorts that he loves to wear around the house.  I had definitely not packed either of those two items which were certainly not up to cruise ship standards.
Several weeks ago we were in Walmart and he wanted a lightweight rain jacket for an upcoming cruise, when he happened upon a whole rail of nasty new cardys.  His eyes lit up when he saw them and he dragged me over to the rack.  The clothing must just have arrived so they had all sizes in stock.  He picked out three in various dirt colours and was such  a happy little chap.
The day we left for vacation he proudly put on his new acquisition and a nice pair of pants and came out of the bedroom for inspection.  He had actually looked in the mirror and had the buttons lined up correctly, the shoulders seams sitting in the right place and had a big smile on his face.  He reminded me of a five year old on his first day of school all ready to go on a big adventure.  How could I not love this man?