Ode to a sleeping bag

 I was a troubled kid with a lot of baggage.  One thing "the experts" suggested were extracurriculars, so my parents enrolled me in tap classes and also Girl Scouts.  With Girl Scouts came camping trips so Mom bought me a sleeping bag, it had a beige flannel lining and a hunter green nylon exterior.  It was very cozy on those winter camping trips even though it was just a basic model.  

(This is one reason I bought sleeping bags when the water cleanup specialists took all my bedding when the cleared out the house)

So youth group trips, Girl Scouts, I took the bag on all those overnight things.  It was very warm and also easy to carry.  It had enough padding to make those hard floors comfortable when I went on the mission trips to Mexico.  

I had a lot of trouble sleeping as a teenager so, in the winter, I spread the sleeping bag over the mattress, slept on that with my covers on top, window cracked open even in winter for fresh air, radio playing, of all things, basketball games.  For some reason the sportscaster always lulled me to sleep.  

My Dad was (I hate to say it) instrumental in a very large church split at my home church when I was 17 and he left the church, went to another one.  They had a high school youth group camping trip and I took my sleeping bag of course.  

The man who unloaded the van put my sleeping bag in a big puddle of oil, ruining it, when we got back to the church.  I threw it out - there was no saving it.  I missed it.  

Ron had an old sleeping bag and we put it over the mattress like I had at "home" and it made our little studio a lot cozier.  And I got more sleeping bags when we had the pipe break - they had to take the drywall between the house and the garage, my bedroom and the garage to be specific, and it was very, very, cold.  Ron could shut his door but I was stuck.  I zipped 2 sleeping bags together and put another one (I got the $10 ones) on top with a couple of blankets and that did the job.  

Currently I have a sleeping bag on the mattress and one on the top but not zipped together, in addition to my usual blankets, as my quilt is falling apart and really only useful for warming plants, these days.  

But I still miss my old bag.