Glove Inequality

It’s getting cold here in East Tennessee. Especially in the mornings. I don’t mind it too much when I’m running because that’s just a quick 20-30 minutes and i’m usually all warmed up and sweating by time I even start the run. But, after I get home from the run, shower, warm back up and then go to my crossing guard gig at 7am, I’m back to room temperature.

I have a nice “official” crossing guard coat that is plenty warm and I can add a sweatshirt underneath if I need to, but what I don’t have are gloves.

I’m not usually a fan of gloves and when I do break down and buy them, I usually get something handmade locally, usually mittens that the top disconnects to leave my fingers free. I know that kind of defeats the purpose of gloves (and mittens), but it’s hard to use a cell phone with mittens on, so it works for me.

I decided at the last minute today that I would need some gloves for work tormorrow. The forecast said it was only going to be 29 degrees and I’m not a fan of the cold. I actually forgot about winter when I was offered the crossing guard job. Otherwise, I may have tried to barter a job share with someone who likes the cold. “Hi there, I can work August through October and February through May. Marcie can work November through January.” But, I forgot about winter and Marcie doesn’t exist so here I am. Gloveless and watching the weather in horror.

So I decided to take a quick trip to the Dollar General store. After all, they have a little bit of everything, so surely they will have gloves.

I got there and hit the jackpot endcap of gloves. They had plenty. I needed white, but all they had were grey, and pink, and black, and blue, and striped gloves and gloves with little rubber traction on the palms, which made me think of a very uncomfortable hand job, actually.

And then they had men’s gloves. A black puffy overly warm set and a cotton “thermal” glove. I looked at the women’s gloves and back at the men’s. Have you every watched a Christmas Story? That’s the easiest way for me to describe the difference. The men’s gloves, while there was only a small selection, was like the brother in his snowsuit. The women’s gloves, if I had to compare them to something from the same movie, were more like the leg lamp.

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I’m not sure why the glove manufacturer thinks that men should have thicker, more element protecting gloves. I mean, what am I supposed to do with that thin women’s gloves? Use them to wash the dishes? Maybe dust the bookshelves? It’s certainly not going to keep my hands warm. Twenty nine degrees and they want me wearing ankle socks on my hands. Women work outside too! We want thermal and pretty.

I get it that it was the Dollar General Store and maybe my expectations were too high. I still bought gloves. I just bought the warm oversized men’s gloves so now it will look like my hands have had an allergic reaction to all the warm wool, but at least they won’t be cold as I stand outside waving for an hour.