Up Front Costs

The short story is that I just spent a bunch of money on football stuff.  I needed to make my annual registration with the state association for the year; there's no getting around that if you want to officiate, so I just decided to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.

The other purchase I've been mulling over for some time.  This falls in the "need vs. want" category, and whether or not I should make the purchase or, if I were going to make the purchase, do it now or later.

Yep -- the "make it" and "now" won out.  I bought a new pair of slacks and two new flags.

I'm not a big fan of the slacks, I much prefer the white knickers we used to wear.  The main reason for preferring the knickers was because they fit snug to the body.  And, no, it wasn't because Mrs. Ref thought they made my backside look good that I preferred that snug fit.  It was because during late season games the snug fit actually helped keep me warmer; i.e. no fabric moving around to keep you cold.

However, the slacks have the same problem the knickers had, and that is that you need to tuck flags and beanbags between your belt and shirt.  If I were any kind of seamstress (or had the ambition to really pursue it) I would have created slacks with front pockets designed to hold flags and beanbags.

Well . . . I happened to discover a place that has something similar.  Their new -- patented (tm) -- slacks have front pockets in a flap design held in place with velcro.  The belt loops closest to the pockets have magnets built in, and they have newly designed flags with magnets in the ball of the flag.  This means that I should be able to carry flags without the hassle of trying to tuck them into the front of my pants.  They also have a special pocket for beanbags.

So we'll see how this works.

(As an aside, I had Mrs. Ref take two flags and sew them together using bb's in one as a counter-weight to the main ball because, no joke, I was so skinny the flag kept falling out of my pants.)

So, did I need the new slacks and flags?  No.  But if it makes life on the field that much easier, it'll be well worth the money spent.