DAY 1: OH-NO!

The one that started it all.


I love this shirt. It speaks volumes about me and the twisted band of miscreants I have come to call my friends. Simplistic and no nonsense, it conveys everything you need to know at a conservative glance. Much like its wearer. Jack Burton. Me.


Except I'm not Jack Burton, although that would be pretty awesome.
My 'Merican amigo Chris understands my obsession with tees and pop culture, and my sense of humor. He instantly recognized that I was destined to one day wear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon my troubled brow, but in the meantime I would need to make due with this cotton masterpiece. 


He presented it to me as an early Christmas gift mid December as we celebrated the season at our traditional Chinese restaurant with a French name and Korean servers, Le Chinois. I gingerly unwrapped it from its newspaper housing and triumphantly held it aloft for all to bask in its crimson glory. Flecks of Moo Goo Gai Pan and Three Ingredients Taste (a delicious concoction of mixed vegetables, chicken, and an as yet determined third ingredient) spat forth from my grease smeared lips as I turned to my beautiful and tolerant wife and loudly exclaimed "HOLYLIVINGFUCK, THAT IS FUCKING TITS!".


The heads of every patron (none of them Chinese, French, or Korean) collectively snapped towards our beer bottle cluttered table. An ecstatic grin from ear to ear, I held the tee higher and turned it toward my now rapt audience so they too may appreciate its awesomeness. My wife gently put her hand on my wrist and calmly asked "You do realize we are in a public place?". 


My response to this rhetorical query of the obvious was a simple reminder, "It's OK. I'm better than all these people". This may seem arrogant or drunkenly obnoxious, but should simply be taken for what it was: The Truth.


I don't recall anyone requesting them, but our Server delivered our bill and fortune cookies shortly afterwards. We wished Chris and his wife a Merry Christmas and parted ways as we live several cities apart.


Halfway home I received a text from Chris inquiring as to whether I had tried on my new shirt yet. An hour later my cell phone rang resulting in an impromptu coitus interuptus, it was Chris excitedly asking if the shirt fit (I'll pause to explain that my ringtone at the time was a Dalek angrily declaring "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" at increasing volumes, my wife found it disquieting).
An email from Chris the next day at work "Are you wearing The Shirt?". I wasn't. 


This continued daily for 2 weeks. 


I LOVED the shirt, but just hadn't had the opportunity to wear it. 
Having exhausted all the other conduits of communication Chris resorted to the one he knows I vehemently loathe and I received a message through FB (a wretched hive of scum and villainy, the digital depot to Homewreckers and Desperation, but for me a necessary means to an end). "You ever gonna wear that shirt or what? I have the receipt if you hated it that much". I was prepared this time and was actually wearing it, and advised him as much. "You're just saying that. You are a LIAR. Lies make Baby Jesus cry". 


Chris knows which of my buttons to push and finds it very funny to do so on a regular basis. I knew this friendly harassment would continue ad infinitum. He is both psychotically persistent and persistently psychotic, so I took a picture of me wearing the Tee and replied by posting the image you see above.


Chris was happy, and immediately went off to devise his next plan of torment. A byproduct was that several other people on FB "Liked" it as well. 


And being a whore for other people's approval, an idea was born.


Having a collection of literally hundreds of awesome T-Shirts, I could be Liked hundreds of times over. I decided to share them with the world. 


With you. 


You're welcome.