The Weirdnesses: A Sweater
Everyone will experience a certain number of weirdnesses in life. These are the extreme outliers of events, the rather unbelievable coincidences and perhaps unexplainable experiences. They can arrive in many different forms, from the uncanny to the psychologically disturbing to the extremely improbable to…well, whatever, anything…weirdness is in the eye of the beholder , after all. I wanted to share some of my particular bugbears from the dark backward and abysm of time.
THE SWEATER
When I was in kindergarten, I had a classmate named K_____ and this little pistol attracted my attention with her bubbly nature and high energy on the playground. Probably I was drawn to her because she was an athletic tomboy and rather like the boys I would get crushes on. We ended up hanging out after school, and this lasted even into first grade. We usually played in the fields around her cute house with steep little eaves and cottage-style accents. I’m sure today it gets marketed as “cottage core.” Or we would explore the creek which ran through those fields. K’s house was the last one on a short road which then entered the grounds of an abandoned orphanage. This was a fun, spooky (and probably dangerous) place where we would play together. We were tiny. This place was a hellscape of torn apart buildings with bare mattresses spray-painted with horrible invitations and threats in day-glo colors. The mattresses were in the middles of floors of empty, torn-apart rooms. So you know what that means. Think Candyman, but in a suburban setting. Most of the buildings were flop-motels for juvenile delinquents and worse. The orphanage spread over a lot of acres but it had trees on all sides hiding it from the rest of the world. For the most part. It had been unoccupied for at least fifteen years at that point. It sort of amazes me that nobody was ever murdered there. But I think most of the scary stuff happened there after dark. And who’s to say nobody was murdered there? Sure looked like a place for new ghosts to be made.
But, surprisingly, the creepy orphanage grounds were not the source of the weirdness. It was K.’s sweater. This little girl would sometimes wear a knit sweater with her phone number on the front of it in VERY large digits. Each digit was a different bright color. Her home phone number had just been knitted into the front of this sweater for everyone in the world to see. It hurts me to type these words, all these years later. Who on earth thought it was a good idea to advertise this? Was it granny? Mom? This was back in the days of landlines when breathers on the phone and other assorted creeps could not easily be caught since calls were difficult if not impossible to trace. I believe you needed police intervention for that. And K. lived in a single parent household. She was often home alone in that tiny house at the end of the street. Her mother was almost always working or absent on other business when I visited. Usually, her slightly older brother was supposed to watch over her, but I’m pretty sure he usually vanished when he thought he could get away with it.
Think how easy it is for a potential abductor to start up a conversation with a six-year-old child. Especially in those days. He could tell her anything. I just have been racking my brain for decades as to why anyone would do such a horrible thing to a child. That sweater was an abomination. It haunts my imagination.
Today, any child sporting such an “abductor invite” as this would doubtless be called into the office at school. And the parents would be contacted and given a good dressing down on the dress code. Possibly, further action would be warranted and taken to check after the parent’s mental wellness or to inquire after the backstory, since it’s a major curiosity burner. I imagine someone asking, “Please don’t take offense, Mrs. H.___, but were you trying to get your daughter abducted?”
Sometimes we wonder whether we are hosting false memories. Because, of course, we are. This is what the human brain does. But I know the horrible sweater was real. How do I know? Because, believe it or not, K.’s mom had her wear it to school the day we had our pics snapped for the yearbook. I have the yearbook with K.’s photo. Below her smiling face is the “Please Call (and then Abduct) Me” sweater. I feel I should submit the photo to the Bad Parenting Hall of Fame, if there is such a place. I don’t know whether K.’s mom is still among the living, but I’m pretty sure she will never read these words (nor will K.) so I’m probably okay telling you this. It honestly haunts me.
The extra weird in this weirdness is that (as a child) I do not think I thought there was anything wrong with K. wearing that sweater. I think I thought it was cute, a helpful way for me to remember her number when I wanted to see if she was free to play. And I don’t remember a single adult or anyone in the school ever making a fuss about it. And she wore that monstrosity numerous times. Not just on “picture day.” Probably she wore it places besides school too.
Part of me, a really dark part, wonders if her Mom shook her head and said “Darn! No takers!” after K. outgrew the sweater and went on to what was I hope) a very happy and long life. I don’t know. We fell out of touch. It was kindergarten! Maybe I should send a text to the sweater-from-hell’s phone number. Or better yet, give it a dial for old time’s sake? I could tell them the horrible story of the phone number they have. Nah. I prefer to stay on this side of sanity today.
