Purple Gloves

Purple gloves.
Those are the code words my son uses to let me know when I’ve crossed a line and my concern, worry, caring, in other words my mothering becomes a bit too smothering.

He was 17, six feet one, about 180 pounds with a size 13 shoe and about to head out the door to help in the family business that was started in our basement 23-ish years ago after my husband lost his job in the not-so-glamorous, behind-the-scenes world of the show biz.
The business of the family? A company called Acme Production Resources that provides production resources (you were thinking anvils? tornado pills?) for events that require a stage, audience and a memorable experience. Those things would be: Lights. Dimmers. Pyro. Staging. In other words, heavy things that require trucks and ramps and hydraulic lifts and a lot of cool looking guys in black t-shirts, with sleeves (I’m talking ink, not fabric).

It was late March. Spring, according to the calendar. But, see, we live in Milwaukee and Spring doesn’t arrive until late June. It was cold. Sleety. And I knew that my son, my baby boy, would be loading and unloading a truck outside.

“Do you have gloves?” said his father.
“Um . . . no?” said my son, with that all-too familiar annoyed-with-us tone.
“You’re gonna need gloves. Work gloves.”
He gave us a blank look. Like my husband was speaking a foreign language.

My mind went into over-drive. Gloves. Gloves. Gloves. We had bags crammed with hats, mittens, scarves that hung on hooks in the closets. There had to be a pair of gloves around. I did a mental scan of the house ala the 6 million dollar man. Gloves. Gloves. Where are gloves? I zeroed in on a bulging canvass bag, that had fallen to the floor of the hall closet. Yes!

“I have a pair gloves you can use!” I said. They were leather. Perfect for gripping metal, getting traction on a slippery road case and they would protect my son from bruised, scraped knuckles. Oh, how I’d been there. You know how bad it feels, when your hands are cold and you jam a finger?

Like all mothers of sons, I am prepared to take a bullet for him. I would have unloaded the truck for him, without gloves, hell, without a jacket, if it meant saving his knuckles from pain and hurt.

I handed him the pair of leather gloves.
“Um . . . mom, these are purple,” he winced.
“So? They’re leather. Padded. Can take a beating!” I felt so smug. Mom saves the day. Again!
They both looked at me. Incredulously.
“Are you serious?” said my husband.
“Mom, these are purple ladies gloves . . .”
He handed them to my husband, who handed them back to me. That was the day I learned that scraped knuckles were something that men had to get in life, no matter how hard I tried to prevent them.