The Suit

A couple of weeks ago, Cameron announced that he needed a suit. We couldn't have been more surprised - this is the kid who hates to wear his church clothes, needs special socks to function, removes all tags, and can hardly stand to have anything other than the softest, smoothest fabric touch his skin. A suit? Really?

Yes, really.

Apparently there were some big events coming up in his 11 year old world, and he felt like a suit was called for. I knew we'd be buying one when he turned 12 (sacrament passing and all), and I was expecting a fair amount of complaining over that - yet here he was, asking for one.

"Why do you need a suit?"

"For Junior Achievement Biz Town...I'm the CEO of the restaurant. I have to dress up. And after that we're going to the symphony."

I must have looked skeptical because he quickly added,

"And Easter. You always want me to dress up. I just need a suit."

"Well, okay."

Then I made him promise a thousand times that he would actually wear the suit and that it wouldn't go the way of every pair of jeans I've tried to buy him. 'Cause I don't think they make suits out of stretchy cotton jersey or the silky polyester track pants material that he loves.

The whole family was going along for The Buying of the Suit. We kind of had to see it to believe it. But as we were walking out the door, my friends came by with an invitation to go on a walk - how could I resist? So Aaron and Oliver went with the walking women and Troy and Cameron set off to buy the suit. Troy assured me that he could handle this. Mmmmkay.

Later that night, it was suit modeling time. Cam was so pleased and excited to show me. He had the tie, the white shirt, black suit...I waited in the front room while he changed and Troy fixed his tie. He walked out to show me.

At first sight, I sucked in a breath and let it out with a loud "aaawwwwwwwwww". He looked so good, so fine, so, so grown up. I oohed and aahed and spun him around, wiped a tear, and just stared at him. He knew he looked sharp, all dressed up, ready to be the CEO of a fictional restaurant, attend the symphony and dazzle on Easter morning.

But then...

As I looked a little closer, something wasn't quite right. The jacket was too big. Huge, even. It did not fit. At all.

Still smiling and not wanting to ever cast a doubt in Cam's mind that he looked awesome, I whispered to Troy,

"What's up with the jacket...it's kinda big."

"Yeah, they didn't have a jacket in his size. I didn't think the store would let me, but I found another suit and just took the jacket from that one. It matches."

"Not size-wise. It's huge!"

Then to Cameron,

"You look so good...did you cut the tags off already?"

They were in the wastebasket.

Size 10 pants...a perfect fit.

The jacket? Size 12, Husky.

Cameron could fit three of himself in there. He is nowhere near a size twelve and he's the opposite of husky. He looks like he's wearing a Zoot Suit. Hard to tell, but his knees are about 4 inches from the bottom of the jacket. He needs a fedora hat and a machine gun.

I pulled Troy into the bedroom with me, where I could hiss at him properly.

"What were you thinking? It doesn't fit!"

"It fits good enough."

"Why didn't you try another store?"

"'Cause this one's fine. The store didn't care."

"It was Sears. Of course they didn't care - they were just happy to have someone in their store!"

"He'll grow into it."

"Yeah, if he triples in size!"

Cam walked in and we sang out,

"You look soooooo handsome!!!!!"

He beamed.

"I know the jacket's big, Mom, but I like things loose. It's comfortable."

Troy still hasn't lost the smug look on his face.

So here's Cam - future CEO of Comfortable Clothing, Inc., selling mismatched suits to "I'm only going into one store" Dads. When not quite right is good enough.

Still looks pretty handsome, though, don't you think?