If You Want To Destroy My Sweater
January 7, 2009
I used to have a nice sky blue WESC hoodie that I loved to wear on chilly days and evenings much like the ones we’ve been experiencing lately. The sweatshirt gremlins have claimed yet another victim as I haven’t the slightest clue where it is. I’m hoping I lent it to someone to wear and that person has forgotten to return it to me. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
In lieu of my favorite sweatshirt, I’ve been reduced to resurrecting my black “UCLA” hoodie that I bought for $50 (what a rip-off!!!!) at the campus store earlier this year when I attended my first ever UCLA basketball game. The sweatshirt represents more than the financial raping of my wallet though, it represents the closest sniff I ever got to going to UCLA. It was January 31, 2008, and the Bruins were playing Arizona State. Jen won tickets to the game by calling Indie 103.1 the day before, and I was elated to finally make my first pilgrimage to the college basketball Mecca, Pauley Pavilion. Growing a UCLA fan wasn’t a choice as I was indoctrinated at an early age by a father who worshipped at the altar of John Wooden, only the greatest coach of all time. Needless to say it was a little dream of mine to one day roam the famed campus in Westwood as a UCLA student, although you probably wouldn’t have guessed it with my half-ass study habits.
My application to transfer was still being reviewed when I went to the game in January. I have a thing about wearing college sweaters if and only if you graduated from the school or are a current student. I’ve bought t-shirts for certain event like March Madness before, but I drew the line with the college sweatshirts with the block letters emblazoned on the front. I broke my rule this time. It wasn’t that I was confident about getting admitted because I’m a realist, but I’d been wanting that sweatshirt ever since I was a kid.
As fate would have it, I didn’t get in. I begrudgingly relegated the sweatshirt to the bottom of my closet to be remembered only as a momentary lapse of reality.
