Pocket Standards

I felt optimistic about the clear skies today and wore my lighter jacket. The issue at hand is that the inside pocket of my light jacket is on the left-hand side and the inside pocket of my heavier jacket is on the right-hand side. So when I switch jackets after having favored one over the other for awhile, I reach for my wallet and it isn’t there. For a moment I think, “My pocket is missing.” Then I figure it out and fish around on the other side.

Today I payed for my tea at Vivace after going through this minor comedy of errors. And I wondered, Isn’t there some industry standard for the placement of pockets? Shouldn’t the clothing industry choose one side and stick with it, like they have with buttons on shirts (on the right for men’s shirts, on the left for women’s)? Then I remembered that I’d bought the light jacket in Edinburgh after having left my thin Goretex jacket in a Glasgow hotel. Maybe there are pocket standards, I thought, but maybe they’re different in the US than they are in the UK – like the placement of steering wheels. Then I recalled a vague memory that I’d had trouble adapting when I’d gotten the heavier coat because the jacket I’d had before that had an inside pocket on the left-hand side. Perhaps the standard is to have the pocket on the left, but perhaps Columbia Sportswear (the maker of my heavier jacket) is breaking that standard. Then again maybe it’s an anti-pick pocket device. There was a moment of doubt though, Was it the heavy jacket that I’d had trouble with or the Goretex jacket? That’s about the point that I stopped thinking about it, deciding that though I had a lot of information, it would be impossible to come to any conclusions.

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