A Man and His Jeans

My husband has been wearing a pair of old worn out jeans (he's been wearing them since long before it was trendy to wear old worn out jeans. ) We're talking "old" here. Frayed, stained, knees wearing thin, holes in butt pockets and even a small rip in the crotch. Still, he refused to throw them away. Nearly had a tantrum when I tossed them out one day. Faithfully, he retrieved them from the old clothes pile. The rip at the crotch continued to get bigger, the knees thinner still, and the hole in the butt spreading a little wider. Then last week, it happened. The crotch split all the way from front to back. One loud, shreading rip and for those close enough to witness the tragedy, they now had the answer to the age old question, "Briefs or boxers?" I almost even felt sorry for him, that somber, I-lost-my-best-friend look on his face. He tossed them in the trash, then went off to Sears. I must have passed by those jeans a dozen times, glad to see them where I thought they'd belonged years ago. But each time I passed the trash, I was reminded of the trench he dug for my first rose bushes. Unloading rocks for my pond. Building my shed and chicken coop. The storybook garden he started for me. So I retrieved them, washed them, and hide them in my sewing room. I'm not sure that surgery will reconstruct them, but I'm willing to give it a try. If I can, I'll wrap them up and surprise him. Hey, who knows, there might be a few more projects in those old jeans yet. I know I certainly have a long list...