I have a short jacket of which I’m very fond. It’s not especially lovely, but it fits well and it nicely occupies a niche between heavy and light. It also packs very very well because it can be scrunched down to almost nothing. But recently its zipper gave up the ghost.

I haven’t been able to find a good replacement for the jacket, so I figured I’d just have a new zipper put in, because it’s so badly broken it can’t be fixed. I took it to the local place I’ve used for years for alterations, and they said it would cost eighty-two dollars to replace the zipper.

Eighty-two dollars.

That’s considerably more than the jacket originally cost. I could replace the entire jacket for much less than that, if I only could find one a lot like it. I’ve looked and looked but so far no dice.

So I set about to find someone else to do the alteration, and discovered that such people are hard to find. It’s like shoemakers. I guess repairing clothing is outdated, although it seems to me that there’s still a need. But the craftspeople just aren’t there any more. I called a host of them and for the most part their phone numbers no longer work.

I did manage to find one person who still does that sort of thing, but she’s off for the summer, and she added that she’s already booked up in September and much of October. She charges forty dollars for a zipper replacement. But again, the entire jacket originally cost something like that, and it’s not even that old.

For that matter, why do zippers break so often these days? Do they not make them like they used to?

And don’t tell me to do the zipper replacement myself. I haven’t a clue how, although I can sew. They taught us in grade school, and it was pretty intensive. I know how to do all sorts of fancy stitches, but not how to replace a large zipper in a jacket. I actually tried to do something similar with a sweatshirt, but gave up.

My guess is that schools don’t teach kids how to sew anymore, either.

I’m in a grousing mood.