Yes, a post about leather jackets. This is my 322th consecutive post. OKAY?

Leather jacket #1

In my 20s, I saved up my measly pennies and bought a real live leather jacket at one of those SoMa shops in San Francisco for the enormous fortune of $100. It was very much of the early-90s times, kind of big and triangle shaped. But I loved it, it worked, I wore it all the time. A few years later, in in a surprisingly crafty move (before I got reaquainted with my inner craftiness) I took it to a tailor. I had a zipper inserted and got it altered so that was a little more motorcycley (since I was a Motorcycle Girlfriend for two long-term relationships in a row). I finally gave it to the thrift sometime in the late 90s. I remember later seeing it hanging in the store, feeling melancholy, and almost buying it back.

Leather jacket #2

Actually a fake leather jacket, but a fun swingy cut, bought in SF in the early 2000s. I wore it on a trip to Ventura and it got stolen from a bar, a bar I happened to be at last night.

Leather jacket #3

My current jacket. This was a hard-won find; I don’t have the gumption to save up for a three-digit anything anymore (except for grownup things), so I trawled the thrifts over the spring and summer, waiting until the perfect piece appeared. It did (it was not my long-lost jacket #1). With $10 worth of tailoring, it’s been one of the best things I own.

I lost it yesterday, it just disappeared somewhere between my car and my office. I retraced my steps, asked around at nearby businesses, turned my car and office inside out. All evening I talked myself into believing that I was mistaken; that I had never brought my jacket to work, that it was waiting for me at home.

I got home late last night and NO DICE. I had a hissy fit, that’s what I had. Not only was the Best Jacket gone, but I had a bunch of annoying emails waiting for me, and it’s just been a long and painful week.

Well but then. Today I went to my coffee shop around the corner of my office and they had it after all, and hooray and huzzah.

And that is the end of my story. Good lord, is it 2012 yet?