No, You Cannot Have the Clothes I'm Wearing

Since I am not most excellent at the sewing machine, I am easily impressed when I do something and it turns out well, even if it is a simple sewing task.  For example, I recently altered the length of my husband's overalls.  I started with an old pair that he wears when working in the garage or when doing yard work, and when I didn't destroy those, I moved on to others.  I'm pleased to have accomplished this task, and he is pleased with the changes.  Not much of a story, is it?  Since you stuck through my saga of simple alteration, I'll give you a bonus "Tale from the VA" story.  

On Halloween, Bruce had an appointment at the BVAMC.  Before we left the hospital to go home, we grabbed a water and a coffee for the drive.  Bruce is wearing overalls.  A man approached and said, "Let me ask you one question."  What followed was not what we expected, but instead was a series of brain teasers.  He then began to talk about the coat he was wearing and all the places in the world he had worn it.  Then he asked Bruce where he got his overalls.  Bruce told him the name of the store where he bought them.  Then he asked to borrow them.  He said he just really needed to borrow them.  We tried our best to just kind of laugh it off and make our way to the shuttle to the parking garage.  Guess who else got on the bus a couple of minutes later.  Usually, those buses are full and there is a line of people waiting for the next one.  This time there were only five passengers--Bruce and I, one man in front of us, and the brain teaser and a buddy toward the back.  Soon he started up again, asking to borrow Bruce's overalls.  He then began to complain a bit more loudly that he couldn't believe that Bruce would not lend him the overalls.  The man begins to make requests that the bus driver might drop him off somewhere besides the parking deck, which of course the driver cannot.  All the way there (it is a short drive, but seemed longer) he would again express his dismay and disbelief that Bruce would not lend him the overalls.  While having the bus nearly empty was not good in that he had almost nowhere else to direct his attention, it was good in that it allowed us a quick exit, and we did.  You just never know what kind of adventure awaits you at the VA.