take that!

Josh has a particularly awesome coat. Actually, he has a few, but the one I'm talking about in particular is a long, green German military coat. It's thick and warm, goes along with that whole military chic thing, plus has the added bonus of being foreign. Seriously awesome coat.

I kind of hate it.

I know you're all surprised, seeing as how I have a particular affinity for that which is awesome. Unfortunately, this coat was given to him by a previous girlfriend. He has a couple other presents from previous girlfriends, but they don't bother me. It is this coat's very awesomeness that irks me. Without the coat, she was just a girl he used to date. But enter this military trenchcoat, call it Exhibit A, and we suddenly have evidence that she might have been awesome, too. Is she awesomer than I am? If we lined up all the presents he's ever gotten from a girlfriend, would the coat be the best one, beating out everything I've ever given him?

Thankfully, these silly thoughts don't trouble me much, because the German coat mostly stays in the closet along with several others. In fact, his current favorite coat is one that would be associated with me. It's a NASA coat. He bought an aviator jacket at a military surplus store and then sewed patches on it. If he were to have future girlfriends, they would hate that coat, because he bought the patches at the Kansas Cosmosphere when he went to move my grandmother out of her farmhouse. Take that, future girlfriends!

One day a few months ago, he had pulled the German coat out of the closet to wear. I had my usual conflicted feelings - wow, that's an amazing coat, how I loathe it - when it occurred to me to ask if there was anything of mine that he loved, yet hated because of associations with previous partners.

"The Muppet DVDs," he answered immediately. I mean, he didn't even have to think about it.

Ha! The Muppet DVDs!

Back in college, my boyfriend-at-the-time bought me a set of 15 DVDs of The Muppet Show. This was kind of a "best of" set, as the individual complete seasons hadn't yet been released. It was a big deal, because though we had been together for a long time, we were not in the habit of buying expensive gifts for each other.

Of course, I still have those DVDs, and I've watched them many times with Josh. Now I realize that his enjoyment of the show had been just a little bit soured by the knowledge of where they came from. Perhaps he had been imagining me laughing at Gonzo's wacky antics with another man. This is how illogical jealousy is, folks - it makes you hate awesome coats and Kermit the Frog. The fact that he was threatened by 15+ hours worth of puppet shows should not make me giggle, and yet it does. This reaction is an indication that I am not yet a Good Person.

As an epilogue to this story, I'm going to mention that Josh bought me the first three complete seasons of The Muppet Show for Christmas. Take that, future boyfriends!