at one of the Eddie Bauer downtown SLC warehouse sales. This thing was super thick and very warm. But it was so bulky that I almost never wore it — it was really hot and made the wearer look like a tank. It looked like it was designed for an Antarctic expedition.

When I left for my mission all my clothes and stuff was stored at my parents' house. I was the first missionary in the family so we never really considered or talked about what would happen to my stuff while I was gone, and when I got home most of my stuff was simply missing. I tried to find a lot of the things when I got home, but my mom said she didn't know what happened to any of it.

More than 10 years later when my wife and I were packing to fly from California to Indiana, I mentioned to my wife that we were going to freeze because as Californians we didn't have any cold weather gear. We took what we could but knew that we'd probably be cold. I made the same comment to my brother the night before the game as we were getting our stuff together for the drive the next morning.

A few minutes later my brother walks into the room . . . wearing the down hooded parka I had bought before my mission and a sheepish grin on his face. Turns out that when he had gone to Ricks College while I was on my mission, he had asked my mom if he could use my parka and she said yes. He had kept it as he had moved around over the next decade. It was a bit dirty but the down still had a ton of loft.

I chuckled, but I seriously contemplated about making a big enough deal about the coat that he would have to let me use it. I made a few half joking suggestions but he didn't offer the coat, and I didn't press it. But when we got to the game I wished I had 😉