I had just moved my fall and winter clothes to my bedroom closet from the office closet and packed my summer tees and lightweight skirts into storage bins, a personal ritual I’ve been performing at the end of October for years.

The temperature had been dropping, and I noticed myself listening intently to the sounds of my home, listening for the whoosh of the furnace kicking on or the tea kettle whistle blowing moist and frantically.

I scoured the top shelf of the hall closet and tried to assess whether I had complete sets of gloves or if I only managed to retain orphans from last February. And where was my earmuff? Behind the vacuum cleaner’s attachments, also stored on this shelf, or somewhere else?

One of the unpredicted consequences of COVID was losing my interest in buying clothes.

Not that I was ever a clothes junkie. I never replaced clothing staples because fashions changed. I replaced coats and sweaters because they were worn out. Or, I’d buy something when I felt there was a gap in my wardrobe. Maybe I wanted something in a certain color or for a type of occasion or for a specific temperature range.

I had a good, very warm, black hooded jacket, and a gray wool coat for when I dressed up, but I decided I needed a jacket for in-between days, days when the thermometer showed above freezing but walking outside for over ten minutes chilled me to the bone.

It felt so strange to make a special trip to buy a new jacket. I can’t recall making such an excursion since COVID. If the parking lot at the nearby mall was any indication of what holiday shopping might be like, I started making plans to do my holiday shopping online.

Social restrictions were easing now that more people were getting vaccinated and there seemed to be a pent-up urge to spend money.

I can’t say I had a lot of money to spend. So I added, “good deal” to “warm,” “hooded,” “water-proof,” and “well-made” to my purchasing criteria.

I immediately gravitated to the “clearance” rack.  Perhaps there was something that didn’t sell last year that would work.

It seemed to be slim pickings, at least, in mv size.

Then, a jacket caught my eye; a name brand, inner and outer zippers, black, medium weight, not down but quilted, with what appeared to be a little white collar for keeping your neck warm.

I unzipped the jacket and tried to figure out where to safely hang my purse while I tried it on. I discovered that what I thought was a collar was actually the top of another zippered jacket that could either be worn on its own or as a lining for adding warmth.

The ensemble was only $56.00!

I was positively gleeful. As soon as I got home, I laid out the jacket on the gaming table in my living room’s bay. I made sure all the zippers worked, ran my hands through the pockets. I tried on the two jackets separately then tried on the black one over the white liner.

I looked at the care instruction sewn into both pieces. “Machine wash separately with cold water.”

Wow! A jacket with a lining, not requiring expensive trips to the dry cleaner —

Not a major windfall or boon. Not an earth shattering change of fortune, but finding exactly what I needed at a good price, with minimal searching involved, at the exact time I was looking for it made me feel happy.

Buying a jacket (with a lining too) for under sixty dollars in under eighty minutes at the start of November is no small thing.