Ironing my shirts I noticed my favourite comfy shirt had died. I think it will pass off as ‘distressed’ for a while now, but the life’s gone out of the fabric. Dang! I must’ve got less than 150 washes out of that shirt! Then this afternoon I found a hole had appeared in the crotch of my newest pair of jeans. I wonder whether this is related to the mix up I had when I first got here when I thought that “bleach” was the american word for “washing liquid” since I couldn’t seem to find washing powder or liquid anywhere. I must’ve gone 2 or 4 weeks with that stuff before finding “Tide” on a drugstore shelf and realising that no, the American word for detergent is detergent. These jeans I was never 100% happy with anyway, what with them being so long that I step on them, and so baggy that a drunken woman once accused me of having gone out in my pyjamas. I make a mental note to go shopping soon. In fact I’d been contemplating shopping for clothes but wanted instead to get some website stuff done. So I fold the jeans and make a mental scribble in the margin of the first note to wear modest underwear with that pair of jeans in future. I pack my bag and head into the office. As I vault the wall, I hear a soft report, like a 21-gun salute 20 miles away, and it feels like my arse has made a break for the mountains.

This is God’s way of saying “Steve, it’s your last weekend in the USA and clothes are CHEAP here.”

So now I’m one pair of jeans and two shirts better off, and a pair of sunglasses that… er… aren’t. Owing to my failing to check for the “100% UV protection” sticker, I have… er … glasses. I drove home wearing them and now have the same semi-migraine I spent my first two weeks battling until I got my cheapo shades. Still, they’ll look great with the shirt and jeans I got…