Moving is probably one of the most stressful things we can do, and I have done it more often than I ever thought I would.
In trying to get fully moved to Habersham County, I have been slowly packing my belongings, and you never quite realize how much stuff you have accumulated in your life until you have to move it.
I was packing my sports memorabilia when I found a pink shopping bag that I thought I had gotten rid of years ago. I recognized the bag, looked inside and found exactly what I thought I would.
I came downstairs and told my wife, “I just found Jeeves’ pants in my closet.”
“Jeeves” is the nickname of one of the most fun people ever to walk this planet, and my wife was surprised we still had his pants.
Sanjeev Sirpal is a former colleague of ours at the Lake City Reporter, but journalism did not quite suit him as a long-term pursuit. It would be nearly impossible to do justice to getting the flavor of knowing Jeeves from this short column, but I’ll give it a shot.
He came to the newspaper initially because his cover letter – filled with stories of walking naked on a windowsill in college and listing his five favorite songs ever, among other gems – was just too fascinating to pass on. While many editors would have thought speaking to him would just waste valuable seconds, our editor David Brown gave him a chance.
Jeeves was creative enough to craft interesting stories, but deadlines and offices were not his thing. He dreamed of Hollywood, and he eventually left us to start making his movie, something a lot of folks would dream of leaving their work-a-day job to do.
Jeeves used to manage to take three lunch breaks a day it seemed, and we joked that he alone was keeping the Larry’s Giant Subs in business. Oddly enough, it closed shortly after Jeeves left. I think he was putting their kids through college.
After a short stint away, Jeeves returned to us one day unexpectedly, like Kramer coming back to New York on Seinfeld. It was like he never left.
But eventually he made it in Hollywood, producing and writing two feature films – Screw Cupid and Random Tropical Paradise – and working on several other projects over the years.
He got engaged to his lovely wife Kiki on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire with help from Cedric the Entertainer (you can watch it on YouTube), and they are raising their two sons in California.
But for some reason, I still have his pants.
I am pretty sure he put the pants in a closet at the newspaper so that if he ever needed a quick change to pivot from something wild he was up to, he could. I remember when our late publisher Rick Bacon – who loved Jeeves like a son – came to me and said “Here are Jeeves’ pants, could you return them to him when you see him?”
That was 2003.
I have seen Jeeves several times since he left the pants behind a year earlier. I took a few trips to L.A. when air travel was still a thing people did, and he made the trip back across the country to my wedding, only to lose his luggage and get there moments before I was to walk down the aisle and take my position.
Had he arrived the previous night when he was supposed to, I could have just given him the pants, which I prepared to do by putting them in a pink shopping bag I found laying around the house.
That was seven houses and three states ago.
Long before now, I should have sent them back in the mail. I even thought that I had, but there they were just the other day, reminding me they are still here.
Jeeves has been missing those pants for 18 years, and as time does to most of us, I am pretty sure he has grown out of them by a size or two.
Now I almost want to hang on to this useless pair of pants that serves no purpose to myself or their original owner. Those pants have followed me across the eastern seaboard most of my adult life now.
My son might even be able to wear them, but if he does, they aren’t likely to make it to Christmas in one piece.
I texted Jeeves the other day to share a laugh about the discovery. He suggested just hanging them on my wall at this point, which would be odd even for a collector of all shapes and sizes of memorabilia like myself.
Either way, having Jeeves’ pants somehow centers our present off-kilter world. We are experiencing tough times right now, but hey, these pants have seen crises come and go. This one will be no different.
Matthew Osborne is the editor of The Northeast Georgian. He can be reached at editor@TheNortheastGeorgian.com or 706-778-4215.