Big expectations!

 I bought a trench coat several years ago. Perhaps many years ago. I'd owned one years before, in my college days. It was the classic tan, with a zip in lining, nice going on winter. I lent it to a friend and it never came back. The trench coat I bought I don't remember when, was green corduroy. Nice Irish green, all the appropriate epaulettes, big brown buttons securing them. Double breasted, and most important, a long, long belt to secure it when all those buttons were a nuisance.

This coat probably accompanied me on airplanes, to corporate meetings late in my career, to be casually draped over the chair beside me and accepted when a gentleman held it out for me to wear to lunch. At the end of some seasons it went to the dry cleaner's laundry for a trip through the suds and the mangle. On its last trip I detoured it through the tailor's shop, to secure all its big brown buttons, some of which were on the last thread.

I wore the coat to a couple years trustee meetings. I remember Ed, our legal representative, holding it for me to put on, and remarking on it. He wore a heavy dark grey wool trench coat in winter, generally tied.

Then I had a stroke, and lost a lot of weight. The coat hung, unused. It moved house several times, surviving my purges. I don't know why; when I tried it on currently, I was a miniature figure swathed in an oversized coat. Pathetic.

Finally deciding to sell it, I took the obligatory pictures for eBay, and since I tell much on Blogger, mentioned the coat would be listed as soon as a tall enough person appeared to hang the coat high enough for decent pictures.

An astute fellow blogger said to herself, "I wonder if it's my size!", and sent me an email. We determined it probably was, and I mailed it off. I should have made a picture of the envelope I crammed it into. The only caveat to the transaction: pictures required.

That coat went to an excellent home!