I recently was tempted to buy a T-shirt I saw in a catalog. It said on the front, "I Thought Getting Old Would Take Longer." I mean, it's a profound statement just about everyone in their "golden years" can relate to, right?
For some reason, I've always loved T-shirts with witty sayings on them, so I've amassed quite a collection over the years. When I first got married, I also wanted my husband to start his own collection, so we could become the couple whose shirts made people smile. But he never was very enthusiastic about the idea. For one thing, he always was shy, so I suppose drawing attention to himself by wearing humorous T-shirts wasn't exactly at the top of his priority list.
Still, every Christmas or birthday, I would buy him a T-shirt with a funny statement on it, hoping I could change his mind and entice him to wear one.
And one time, I thought I'd finally hit the jackpot. His favorite expression (in an incredibly bored tone) whenever we went somewhere always was, "Are we having fun yet?" So I leapt at the opportunity to buy him a T-shirt with that saying on it, figuring he would love it.
Let's just say moths ended up wearing it before he ever did.
But one day, to my utter shock, my husband (I still suspect solely out of revenge) actually bought a witty T-shirt for himself.
He'd just had his annual physical where the doctor had lectured him about the inches he'd gained around his waistline and told him to lose at least 15 pounds to keep his BMI down. So my husband, while still muttering about the doctor, happened to see a T-shirt that said, "I'm not fat, I'm pregnant!" and bought it. And then he wore it...everywhere. He didn't care that the T-shirt actually had been designed for pregnant women to wear. He loved it. And so did most of the people who chuckled at him whenever we went anywhere.
I hated that shirt. But I wasn't about to tell him that...because then I'm pretty sure he'd have worn it even more often, just to spite me.
I learned the hard way, however, not all people get a kick out of funny T-shirts the way I do. I was in Market Basket one day and was wearing a T-shirt that said, “In Training to be Tall and Blonde,” on the front. A lot of people read it and smiled as they walked past me, and I felt happy they were enjoying it. But then, in the checkout line, the woman behind me kept giving me a look – the kind of look that someone who’d just sucked on a lemon might have – every time I turned around to remove the items from my cart.
Finally, she snapped at me, “Why on earth do you want to draw attention to your chest? Most women are offended when people stare at them there…unless they’re exhibitionists!”
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Sally Breslin is a native New Englander and an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net
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