Last night, I used red thread to fix a pair of dark blue pants, and then colored over the red thread with a black magic marker so it wouldn’t show as much.

Who the heck am I? Clearly not my mother’s daughter. She owns thread in every possible color. And not my father’s daughter. He believes that if pretty good is good, perfectly right is better. Any not my husband’s wife. He’d just be getting different pants. And my sister would have just gotten pants that fit in the first place. I’m an alien equipped with almost but not-quite-right tools.

Instead of assuming that I’m just lazy, let’s think of some good reasons for my mismatched thread. Its a fashion statement. I’m in a secret red thread club. Red thread shows my solidarity with people who don’t have access to fancy blue thread. I’m introducing a new way of honoring people with heart problems. I’m a spy, and the red thread is a coded message to my handler.

In reality, I consider this part of my living selfishly initiative. I didn’t want to spend more than 20 minutes on this project, so I didn’t. Red is what I had, so that’s what I used. And afterward, I still had time to read to John and then get on with the rest of my evening. The pants are fine, and even those of you who now know about my red thread are probably not going to notice.

Particularly because I used a Sharpie to color over it, and those things don’t wash out. I feel good about this.