Made only from rags, but I wore it so proudly

I always told myself that if Dolly Parton ever went on tour, I'd sew a coat of many colors to wear to her concert. My boyfriend and I had been working on our coats for weeks, and I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive about wearing a patchwork coat in public. After telling someone about the idea, they said that I'd look like I was wearing a clown coat and that people would make fun of me. Every stitch I sewed after hearing that made me ever squeamish about doing it.

I didn't think I'd wear it out, but I did (thanks to the diligent efforts of the boyfriend who spent his whole day finishing it for me). As soon as I put it on, all of the apprehension melted away and I marched toward the Chicago Theater with my head held high. A lot of people stared, but the stares were accompanied by smiles and seemingly genuine gasps of astonishment. Fans at a Dolly Parton concert are some of the nicest folks around, and no one said one negative thing about my coat that evening.

After Dolly sang "Coat of Many Colors," a crazy man ran up onto the stage and showed Dolly his own coat of many colors and I fumed. Have you ever seen what happens when two gay boys wear the same thing to a party? One of them ends up leaving with scratch marks on his face. But things weren't that serious at the concert. I didn't run up to the stage to show my coat off to her like he did, but part of me wishes that I did.

People loved the coat and complimented me and my boyfriend on the effort, which was good enough for me. What was more important was that there was a lot of love stitched into the coat on his behalf, much like the coat that Dolly's mother made for her.

After the concert, the woman sitting behind the crazy man came up to me and asked why I didn't go up and show mine up against his. The crazy man's coat only had about four colors, whereas mine had about 5,000 colors. But pointing something like that out is the Sin of Pride, and Dolly wouldn't approve of that behavior. We did get a good laugh out of the whole thing because she and the rest of her friends sitting next to her had dubbed him "The Freak of Many Colors."

Oh no, that's the Sin of Wrath! Don't tell Dolly!