ONE COLD HAND

I have nice leather gloves in black, blue, and brown which I wear to weddings, funerals, and for other dress-up occasions. I also have a pair of purple suede gloves which I wear to Red Hat Lady events in the winter. I don't wear any of my nice gloves often because I lose gloves so easily. The remainder of the winter I wear the one-size-fits-all stretchy gloves. I have them in various colors: different shades of black, brown, gray, blue, and red.

Each year, when the winter sales are on, I stock up; the gloves are usually about 50 cents apiece then. I carry at least four pairs of these gloves in my glove box and whenever I see a kid without gloves, I stop and hand a pair of gloves to them.

I began doing this years ago when I noticed that at the end of our street there were kids playing outside in the winter not wearing hats and gloves. This was the house where my nephew said "The Spider People" lived. When I asked him why he called them that he said, "I think they have webs in their hair!" (see BLOG article about THE SPIDER PEOPLE). I went to the Dollar General store and bought hats, gloves, and scarves, returned and handed them to them. Within a week I saw one of the same kids without gloves. I bought more gloves and gave the gloves to him; they began calling me "The Glove Lady".

One time I saw one of the girls wearing mismatched gloves. That's when I decided to carry only black gloves, even though I know that there are different shades of black. Those children have since grown up and moved, but I still see a lot of kids without gloves.

I no longer buy hats and scarves; thank heavens for hoodies; every child seems to wear a hoodie nowadays.

The great thing about the stretchy gloves is that they can be worn on either hand. Right now, in my glove container at home, I have seven LEFT-HAND gloves. All of these are nice--some designer--leather gloves. Why do I keep them? Do I hope to have them reunited like some long-lost lover? There's an organization named ONE COLD HAND which seeks to help people reunite their gloves or trade with others. I can envision my lonely-hearts type advertisement: "Lonely, size 7, left-hand, saddle-brown, sheep leather, Burberry glove with cashmere lining, wishes to be reunited with right-hand mate!"

I would think that statistics would show that more right-hand gloves are lost because there are more right-handed people, but read the article from The New Yorker (HERE) about a woman who collects lost gloves. She said that maybe it's only in New York, but she has found more left-hand gloves than right-hand gloves.