t-shirt dilemma/fat kid dying of heat stroke

Yesterday I spent a good twenty minutes standing in front of the "gen-x" t-shirt aisle at Target.  (I was there at my daughter's insistence, I don't normally buy clothes at Target, I swear).

But I got sucked into their humorous, gen-x t-shirt wall for a long time.  Reading all of those t-shirt slogans, and vintage 70s and 80s icons put me into this state of inner turmoil.  It caused this argument between two sides of my brain, each with the opposite feeling about these trendy shirts.

At first I see the faded (original) "Star Wars" logo, and I'm like,

"Cool! I wouldn't mind wearing that!"

But then just as quickly, another side of my brain is like: "hey, they've just hired shrewd marketing strategists to make you feel that way  by plucking the pop culture highlights of your childhood."

And then the other side is like:

"So what! If you like it you like!  Besides, how else are retailers going to sell things that you actually want if they don't do some research first?"

But then the pessimistic side says: "yeah, but if this t-shirt has reached the shelves of Target, then its already way played out (whack, as they say now) and you'll look like a doofus being the nine-hundred millionth person to wear it.

And so my brain went back and forth like this for a long time.  In fact, to an outside observer it must have looked like I was about to make a decision that would completely screw up my life forever if I got it wrong.

Finally I was like: "Fuck it! These t-shirts are only ten dollars, just buy one!"

So I examined them all carefully again, but this time with a mindset that I was going to buy.  Some were just stupid and cliche, like:

"I'm out of bed and dressed.  What more do you want?"

Or needlessly negative and sarcastic like:

"I know what you're problem is.  You're stupid!"

Still another one only sounded appropriate on the torso of a minimum wage employee being stressed out at a Starbucks or Borders book store:

"Let me stop everything I'm doing right now so I can focus exclusively on you're problem."

I mean, why go around in public with a t-shirt slogan thats basically arguing with people all the time.  Bad energy.

I kind of liked the "Squirrels Gone Wild!" T-shirts, which spoofed the soft core porn videos, but they seemed too much like what a fat guy wears at a bar, because he has to take the "funny, fat guy" approach to everything.

The Speed Racer shirt was kind of appealing, but I would be a phony to wear it, since I've never seen an episode of Speed Racer in my life.  (How come "Battle of the Planets", and "Ultraman" haven't made it into the retro kitch marekting shceme yet?  Hint! Hint, to exploitative marketeres out there).

Finally I zeroed in on a t-shirt with this battle-scarred, yellow smiley face that said, "I'm no longer a danger to society." 

I usually don't ever, ever wear t-shirts with slogans or writing on them, but this one just seemed especially appropriate for me, with all of my scrapes with the law and stuff and finishing up with probation (and screaming panic attacks that wake up the neighbors in the dead of night). (The Star Wars one just seemed a little too common).

So, I decided I would go for the "no longer a danger" t-shirt.  Yep, I could stand behind that one, and I figured even my family would get a kick out of it.

But of course when I started digging though all the tossled t-shirt stacks, I found out that that t-shirt was sold out.

Shucks.

So I bought a black t-shirt that had some pac-man ghosts on it instead.  I guess this is pretty cool, I thought.

I put it on out in the parking lot, so I could start getting my retro-80s, gen-x, off- the- shelf- from- Target props immediately.

 But on the way home the pac-man shirt started to feel hot and itchy from the merciless, July, Florida sun.  Must be fifty percent polyester.

When I was almost home I saw these three overheated looking kids pushing a lawn mower up my street.  I drove past them for a block, and then stopped and backed up.

I've been on the look out for some sort of a lawn-boy kid to cut my grass.  I used to have a crack head that mowed my lawn, but then he pretty much disappeared.  A couple of weeks ago I had to borrow my friend Matt's mower, after getting a "mow-your-lawn-or-get-evicted" notice from my landlord.  Matt's mower has some sort of throttle problem, and it doesn't want to turn off once you start it.  In fact, you risk a shock by trying to disconnect the spark plug to kill the engine.  In the mean time, Matt already taken his mower back and now the weed in front of my house are back at their eviction notice levels.

Anyway, I'd been on the look out for a lawn mower kid, and now I saw what looked like a small team of them.  So I backed up until I caught up with them.

"Hey!  Are you kids trying to make money mowing lawns?"

"Yeah!" one of them exclaimed enthusiatically.

"Well you can mow my lawn.  I'll give you ten bucks."

"Alright!" said one of the kids.

It was a good four blocks to my house, and I could see the kid that was pushing the mower was already beat red in the face from the heat of the day.  (His friends were relatively comfortable on their bikes, but they didn't seem to want to help out).

I thought about giving them all a ride down to my place in the back of my pick-up truck, but then I had some sort of funny feeling about it.  In this day in age, it seemed like a bad idea to pick up 3 boys you'd never met before and give them a ride in you're truck, even if you're trying to do them a favor.)

So, I gave them directions to my house and told them to knock on the door when they we're done.  The boys on the bikes were at my place in about 45 seconds, while the kid pushing the mower took about five minutes and was even a brighter shade of red when he finally arrived.

I went back in my office to mess around on the computer while the kids cut my grass.  Well, at least I licked that problem today, I thought.

But a moment or two later I heard this awful, rapid metallic clacking sound, that sounded like, well, a broken lawn mower.

I went outside to see what was going on.  The bike kids were standing around with their hands on their hips, while the lawn mower pusher, on the verge of heat stroke, kept pulling the cord.  Everytime he did, it just made that awful clacking sound.

"Maybe you just ran over something?" I said.  (Most likely a beer bottle in my yard).

"We already looked," one of the kids said.  "We turned it over and everything."

I turned it over myself, hoping I would have some sort of magical adult perspective.  But there were no rocks or beer bottles under there, just a lawn mower blade.

I pulled the cord a couple of times myself and it made that awful clacketing noise.

If this was the real business world, these kids would be shit out of luck.  They had only mowed a few square feet of my yard.  Definitely not enough to ward away the next "mow your yard or else" letter.

But I couldn't do that to a couple of kids, especially when the chubby kid was about to die of heat stroke, having pushed the piece of junk a quarter mile to my house.

I fished out a five spot from my wallet and handed it to one of the bicycle kids.

"Here's for your lawn mower repair fund," I said.

"Thanks," one of the kids said, but not with much enthusiasm.

As I was walking into my house, I realized that I probably should have given them singles, and an even number of them, to keep their from being fund-distribution problems.  One of them would probably get stiffed by the others.

Chances are, it would be the fat kid dying of heat stroke.

7:09:53 PM