Women And Mink Coats

There’s my wife in a mink coat pretending she’s J-LO. Don’t tell her I said that. She’s just as pretty as J-LO. Don’t tell her I said that either. It will go to her head. What's that she's doing with her lips in the picture.

            She’s also just as big a pain in the ass as J-LO. And I don’t even know J-LO, but I do know my wife.

            I also know myself. And I can honestly say I’m just as big an asshole as Ben Assflex.

            After I took this picture, I called PETA and reported my wife, Brenda. I told you I’m an asshole.

            Got to love those people at People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals.

            It took me a long time to make that coat. First, I had to go to Minnesota or wherever you go in the remotest parts of Minnesota to hunt furry animals. Then I had to set all these traps like it was 1755. Then I had to go back weeks later to see what I caught.

            I had to skin ‘em. Man those minks were screeching in pain. Just about busted my eardrums. I'll never get that sound out of my head, no matter how much rap music I listen to. Then I had to build a wood raft to transport the furs to civilization. The Minnesota River has lots of rapids. Tough to navigate. The worst part was when my Nikes fell into the river and got ruined.

            It took me months, but I made it back East. I schlepped those furs all the way to Brooklyn, New York. Got to the subway for the final leg of my arduous journey only to be robbed at gunpoint.

            The robbers got most of my furs, but not all of ‘em. I hung on to what I could and got off at Church Street Station. Walked several long blocks. At that point I had to schlepp the furs up four flights of stairs without any help to my apartment.

            It was there that I made this ug.... uh... beautiful fur coat for my wife. But first I had to procure a sewing machine before I could do that. So, I broke into Guiseppe's Tailor Shop on Avenue C. When I got back, I got right to work only to have the neighbors complain about the noise from the sewing machine.

            On top of all that, the furs released a ton of dust particles in the air. The dust from the pelts infiltrated my nasal canals as I labored to put this hairy beast together. I coughed like a chainsmoker on his third pack of cigs. Since then I have to use Afrin nasal spray in the mornings to get my nose working.

            Forget about everything I just said. The truth is, this coat belonged to my mother before she passed. In my mother’s day, mink coats were a big thing. Think of the movie, “That Touch of Mink,” starring Cary Grant and Doris Day. One hour and 39 minutes of classic Rom/Com. 1962. What a year. Hollywood still in its glory days.

That's my mom and dad over there. Didn't they make a nice couple. I mean look at that photo. Will ya? They don't make couples like that any more. I can't ever remember seeing my mom in that mink coat. A coat like that just isn't practical. Mom didn't wear that coat even when she got dressed up and it was colder outside than a polar bear sitting on an iceberg slurping a snow cone on Christmas Eve. Even when mom was showing off, pretending she was Jackie Kennedy, I don't remember seeing her in that coat. My parents were practical people. School teachers by trade.

I remember sitting at the kitchen table with mom and dad. In the 1960s, families actually sat at the kitchen table together having dinner. What a concept.

It was at the dinner table that mom and dad often talked about the bills. They weren't talking about the Buffalo Bills. They were talking about the electric bill, the heating oil bill, the sewer bill, the water bill... They talked about the second job dad took. And the third one dad worked on Saturday mornings.

So mom having a fur coat at least to me seemed very Hollywood. Fur coats were for folks loaded with dough. My folks did not fall into that category. Dad drove an old Ford Galaxie.

I don't really know how the coat came to be in our family. My parents didn't talk to us about it.

Did dad save up and legitimately purchase the coat. Or did dad buy it out the back of a car trunk from one of the goodfellas. The goodfellas used to hangout at the Sherwood Diner on Rockaway Turnpike.

The fellas were dese gangsters that director Martin Scorsese made a famous movie about called "Goodfellas." You may have seen the movie. It's the gangster flick with Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci and Paul Sorvino.

That fur coat spent as much time in the closet as the reinforced wood hangar with the velvet padding that it hung on. But it was my mother's prized possession.

            Mink wasn’t politically incorrect back then. It was glamorous as a movie star. But times change. Fortunately.

            When my dad was young, he worked as a furrier in a sweatshop in the garment district of New York. The experience motivated him to go back to high school at night. The sight of the grown men in the sweatshop having to spray their nostrils with Neo-Synephrine to open their nasal passages was all the motivation he needed.

            Thank God he did. God bless you dad. God bless you mom.

            As for the mink coat that Brenda is posing in like she's J-Lo. Well, it was sold in consignment.

            If you must know, I say faux fur is the way to go.