Tuesday, February 16, 2010

What's that on your shirt?

This next story takes place during my college years. At the time I was working for a retailer of licensed sports apparel. This was located in an extremely unsuccessful mall in the town adjacent to where I attended school. I lived approximately 5 minutes away from this place of employment, so I was always waiting until the last possible moment to leave my abode. This day would be no different. I do not recall what caused me to run behind that day, but I hurriedly found some clothes to throw on, ran out the door, and scampered to work. Upon arriving at work, I was greeted by my manager. This fellow was quite the goofy character. The first thing he asked, as I stood there on the floor ready to approach the 3 customers that would be in that day, was, "Did you have an accident on your shirt?" I looked down and noticed a large stain on my shirt. "Oh heavens," I thought to myself. What was this stain you ask? Well for that we will have to skip back a few days.

A couple days prior I had come home from classes and was greeted by my lady friend. She must have had a splendid day, because she was very eager to meet me. Apparently she had chosen to reward me for having been a wonderful individual. I will spare everyone the gritty details, but an important part of the story is that she had chosen not to consume the nectars of the gods. I could respect the decision, but this did end up causing some a fair amount to be splattered onto my T-shirt. "No big deal," I thought to myself. I proceeded to remove the shirt and place it in the washer where it would soon be joined by other clothes in need of cleaning.

A couple days passed, and the day had arrived in which I was hurriedly heading out the door for work. As I hurried around the house I was looking for a T-shirt to throw on and head out the door. Often when we removed clean clothes from the dryer, we would simply place the pile atop it. Thus, this was the first place I checked for a shirt. Luckily I was able to spot one resting innocently alone on top of the dryer. I quickly picked it up, placed it to my nose to smell it. This was necessary to determine that it was in fact clean. It passed my scientific sniff test, and I threw it on and ran out the door.

Once I had arrived at work, my manager had pointed out the stain on my shirt. Upon looking down, I noticed firmly entrenched below my shoulder sat a giant white splatter on this dark blue shirt. Instantly I knew what it was, and it was fairly obvious to everyone else as well. Apparently my lady friend had decided to complete a load of laundry. However, she had decided that my shirt would only get in the way. She had removed my shirt from the washer and placed it on top of the dryer. I'm not sure why my shirt was not qualified for a washing, but I feel I was sabotaged.

This was not good news whatsoever. I did not have a backup shirt lying around. It was the middle of the summer, so I hadn't brought a sweater or anything else to throw over the top of the shirt. I was stuck. I was aware that Foot Locker sold their blank T-shirts at 5 for $20. However, the Foot Locker was located on the other end of the mall. I decided that this was necessary rather than awkwardly approach customers the entire evening with this gigantic stain on my shoulder. One could imagine the stain talking to the customer as I approached them, much like a Tide commercial. So I chose to venture out to the Foot Locker.

As I walked down the corridor I attempted to cross my arms in a fashion that would potentially cover up this stain. It was in a place that this wasn't particularly successful. I went into the Foot Locker and chose 5 shirts in a variety of colors. I walked to the register and attempted to rest on my elbow in a manner that might hide the stain. Awkwardly I kept shifting around and looking down to see if I might be able to disguise this stain. The man working behind the counter was a middle-aged Foot Locker employee that took his job very seriously. He decided to ask me if I would like to purchase socks, shoe cleaner, the works. I just wanted to head out of there to place on my new t-shirt. This gentleman was having none of that however. He continued to probe me on all of their exciting products. Finally, he handed me the receipt, and I was able to escape from this man's rant.

I scurried back to the store and went into the back room to change. Quickly, I proceeded to place on the new shirt and bag up the stained shirt. I seemingly do not embarrass easily enough, because I actually forgot to take the shirt home that evening. I've been told that my manager proceeded to pull it out of the bag and show it to all the other employees at the store over the next day or so. I hadn't realized that my shirt would be turned into a Smithsonian exhibit. He seemed to have no qualms holding up my encrusted shirt. I told you he was an oddball. Thus concludes the story of how I wore a semen stained shirt to my place of employment.

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