It’s Magic! How to Buy 3 Pairs of Gloves and Make 2 Disappear

by Laura Yan

At H&M, find a pair cognac colored, soft and supple leather gloves that match the shade of your fancy bag. They are perfect. Buy them for $24.95.

Wear them with your makeshift Halloween costume (Equestrian Betty Draper — no one gets the Betty Draper part) to a party.

Discover (blood like) red wine stains on them the next day.

Stress about the cost of dry cleaning. The last pair of suede gloves you got from H&M cost $18 to dry clean, which is probably about the price you paid for them. They didn’t look so great afterwards, either.

Google how to remove wine stains from gloves and decide that it’s not so hard — table salt, white wine, let dry.

Lose your gloves.

Feel sad, but also vaguely relieved. At least now you won’t have to clean them. Go to H&M after work and find the same gloves there, now on sale for $15. Get very excited and buy them.

Go to a bar to watch the election results. Drink one whiskey ginger ($2.50). Get anxious. Talk to the strangers around the bar. One stranger says: I have a bad feeling about this. I think that Romney will win.

Decide you’d be happier at home, in bed, watching 30 Rock to distract yourself. Look up how to get home — it will take a hour, with a lot of walking in the biting cold, and a long wait for a slow train, and a lot more walking.

Take a cab ($19 with tip).

Get home and discover that you’ve lost your newly purchased gloves. But at least Obama is president.

Wonder if you are cursed.

Consider making mitten strings and stringing them through leather gloves. Think about Mittens Romney. Feel relieved.

Go to H&M. Admire the perfection, the rich color and softness of the gloves. $15. Buy your third pair (you have now spent $55).

Third time’s charm?

Laura Yan is a writer in NYC. She tweets.

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