The Only Hibernation in My Life

I put it off as long as I could. But last night, when I didn't want to do homework, I decided it was time to get out my winter clothes.

I never look forward to this task. For one thing, that means it is cold outside; cold, dark, and snowing. For another, it means I have to put away my summer clothes, which is much more trouble than putting away winter clothes. After all, summer clothes stay in the box a heck of lot longer, since winter is so freaking long. And it's one thing to bunch up my sweaters and throw them in a box for a few months. It's entirely different to have to carefully fold each of my short-sleeve cotton or silk or blended shirts and try to figure out a way to arrange them in the box so that when I pull them out many months later they will not be horribly wrinkled beyond repair, and then be too lazy to iron when they come out wrinkled beyond repair anyway.

Another reason I don't like it is that my winter clothes are not exciting. "Oh look, a sweater! This will go really well with these other five sweaters I just pulled out!" And apparently I don't rotate my winter clothes as often as my summer clothes, because there are sweaters in there that I've probably been wearing since high school. So actually, it's more like, "Aww, it's the sweater I wore when I went to take the ACT! It'll go really well with these other five sweaters I just pulled out! And I bet only a few people will notice that hole in the middle."

So, last night I overturned my whole wardrobe, folded up my summer clothes and placed them (rather unceremoniously--let's be honest) into my box. I don't think they've ever been in this particular box, actually. I used to have a giant cardboard box (obtained my freshman year of college and at one point in my life doubled as an end table), but I finally retired that this year and replaced it with plastic. I feel pretty good about the exchange.

I noticed two things of interest: one, I have more hangers now. I'm not sure why, because I really didn't take that many things out of my closet. (I just couldn't stomach throwing everything into the box.) But second, even though I didn't pull everything out of my closet, my box was full to the brim with my summer clothes.

In reality, this is probably a good thing, because if there had been any room left after I put my summer clothes inside the box, I might have climbed in there after them and waited for winter to be over.