This morning I checked the closet and I was completely at the bottom of my supply of tee shirts. There were, in fact, no clean black tee shirts to be had. Of what was left I chose a not so dark blue shirt. I have no use for blue tee shirts. I did choose a black long sleeved shirt to put over the tee. It was not warm today.
The choice got me to thinking and reminiscing on how that blue shirt got to hanging in my closet. It was a Valkyrie tee with an image of a speedometer on it. It was not my speedometer.
It was a couple of years ago, well a little over a year and a half that I was in La Crosse, Wisconsin for InZane. I was a little brain injured and wearing a neck brace. My wife, Lori, had done all she could to stay next to me just about every waking moment. There was a time that she let me go back to the room alone to take a nap. I shaved. That seemed to upset her a bit. One particular afternoon she found herself tied to the task of baking pies away from the hotel. I didn't wish to accompany her and she didn't particularly want me there.
I was standing outside the tee shirt booth where my friend Madison was managing business. A man walked up to the counter and queeried, "How much for one of the event shirts?"
"Twenty dollars, but we don't have any extras. We will sell the ones that were ordered but didn't get picked up on Thursday morning. We can sell you one of our other shirts for ten dollars."
"I have to leave on Wednesday."
"I'm sorry, but I can't sell any before Thursday. They might still show up for them."
I was wearing a black InZane event shirt. "What size do you wear?"
"I'd take a medium or a large."
"This one's a medium. It's been worn. You want to buy this one?"
"I'll give you twenty dollars for that one."
It took me just a few seconds and some effort to pull the shirt off. He handed me a twenty dollar bill and I passed him the shirt. I tirned to the counter and Madison. "Okay I'll need any shirt in a black medium."
"We don't have any black mediums."
Whoops. I guess there is something to be said for proper planning.
"Okay. Show me what you do have in medium."
And that's how I ended up with a blue shirt sporting the words, "Valkyrie, the Power of Six." I was pretty sure that was the last day I'd be wearing that shirt.
It was about that time that Lori's phone went off in the kitchen some distance away from the hotel. She opened it to reveal a picture of a man in a neck brace and no shirt accompanied by a text that read, "You'd better hurry back. He's selling his clothes now."
And that was the shirt I wore today. It's held up really well for a year and a half.
