The sweater story

At about 5 o’clock one day this week, our boss was getting set to leave. One of the other reporters had written a story about green gifts for the next day’s paper. On his way out, our boss decided to tell us a little story about a multicolored sweater his mother had once given him as a gift. He considered it to be the perfect example of a green gift, I guess because it was handmade. Anyway, that’s when it happened.

I had only ever talked to Larry, my boss, on the phone before coming here. Whenever I talk to someone on the phone, I always try to put a face and an image to their voice. Is that weird?

Larry has a fairly deep voice – not quite Men’s Warehouse deep – but it has that raspy quality. It’s a good radio voice. He also laughs a lot, which makes him sound very jolly. For some reason, when I pictured Larry, I pictured him as a slightly overweight guy who enjoys wearing bright sweaters. I don’t know why that image came to mind, but it did. It’s pretty far from the truth. He actually favors a lot of single-colored earth tones.

But when Larry told the story about the sweater, I, for some reason, blurted out my story about me having pictured him as a guy who wears crazy colored threads.

He looked at me quizzically and then let out one of his deep belly laughs. I thought it was a good moment. A kind of redefining moment like when I rapped at my old golf course boss:

When counting change
I don’t make a mistake.
Cause with my skills
This job’s a piece of cake.
All I can say is you
better watch out Jake
Cause your best place might be in maintenance
With a rake.

My coworkers had different ideas about the sweater story.

“How long have you been working here?” the sports editor asked. He thought I stepped over a line. The story bordered on an insult, in his opinion. I argued the point, saying whatever I conjured up wasn’t the truth. How could that be an insult? It’s not like Larry actually wears crazy sweaters and I was making fun of him.

The next morning, Larry gave me an extra glance when I walked into the office. It wasn’t menacing or friendly. It was just thoughtful.

Then we had a conversation about an upcoming story.

Also, this may be the best lead I've ever written, if only because the situation is so rich.

Comments welcome,
Andrew