Black Mirrors: Press One For The Biggest Headache In The Whole Wide World
Over the years, a favorite hobby of mine has been buying bad t-shirts and gifting them to various friends and family members. Nothing says I Love You like a scoop neck that declares: I’m With Stupid!
The key to giving away bad t-shirts is all in your follow through. I can’t emphasize this enough: ALWAYS FOLLOW THROUGH. The next time you award your best friend a bad t-shirt, make sure you follow up in two to three weeks with a well-timed, guilt-induced phone call. Watch how I do it:
Hey, why aren’t you wearing that Milli Vanilli shirt I bought you? Don’t you like it? Seriously, it took me weeks to find that shirt for you! Why don’t you just wear it to the Tigers game tonight? Oh, you will? Thanks, that means a lot to me.There’s only one other man born to this planet who enjoys bad t-shirts as much as myself...and that man is Kenny. Oh how, I wish you could all meet Kenny! I just love that kid! I love him to death. In fact, might just love Kenny almost as much as I love bad t-shirts. Almost.
Attention? Oh, trust me, you’ll get ALL the attention tonight.
Kenny has a lengthy and intimate history with bad t-shirts. One night, a group of Kenny’s pals – a sharp trio of educated and droll bachelors – fancied themselves up for a proper Boys Night Out. The evening was to begin at Post Bar...and continue on till all of Metro-Detroit was painted a suave and urbane shade of red.
Kenny showed up to the club wearing this monstrosity:
I guess the party had not arrived...because the bouncers at Post were so repelled by Kenny's shirt that they barred him from entering their club.
Kenny had a birthday party a few weeks ago at uber-chic club, Cinq. Before heading over to his shindig, I found myself surfing the web, desperately attempting to find Kenny the perfect bad t-shirt. Here were my top three finds:
1.
2.
3.
Note the last one, which is remarkably poor in taste and humor. To imagine that someone actually came up with this t-shirt idea...and then envisioned the shirt so witty that it needed to mass produced for public consumption...well, it just screams buy me and make Kenny look like the biggest fool in the room.
I’m not a huge fan of Cinq. Cinq is one of those nightclubs where you stand in line for half an hour...just so you can crowd up against aging hipsters and pay absorbent amounts of money for mediocre cocktails. My patience doesn’t fair well with social establishments like Cinq...but it was Kenny’s day to shine...so I slugged my way into line. That’s what you do for your friends on their birthdays, right?
Waiting in line, I’d the luxury of standing behind a couple undeniably gorgeous Spanish-speaking ladies and three fraternity brothers. Here is a full recount of their one-sided conversation.
JOSH: Hey, them girls are smokin’ hot!
BRIAN: Whatcha ya think they're speakin’? Spanish?
JEFF: Hit on 'em in Spanish, Josh!
JOSH: Ladies, you're muy bonita! MUY BONITA!
BRIAN: They're not listening, Josh.
JOSH: That's 'cause they probably can't speak American.
BRIAN: I just don’t understand why they come over here and don't speak American. We’re in America, right?
JOSH: Amen!
BRIAN: You know, I called up my cable company the other day and they asked me to press one for English!?! Why should I press one for English? I live here! I shouldn't be pressing nothing! I bet them girls don’t have to push one when they’re in Mexico...or Spain...or wherever the hell they’re from.
JOSH: I wish they’d all just go home. All of 'em. Then they could speak whatever language they wanted wherever.
JEFF: Josh, will you shut up!
JOSH: Oh, you shut up. You believe it too.
JEFF: That doesn't make a difference! We’re in public. We don’t talk about that stuff when we're in...
BRIAN: I don’t care anymore. All these foreigners need to get on their boats and go home.
(JEFF turns to me)
JEFF: You're one of them Indjuns, right? I guess this is pretty awkward for ya right now, eh?
Maybe I won’t buy Kenny that t-shirt after all.
Labels: Employee Voices, The Black Mirror Diaries
posted by Suneil Singh at
5:42 PM
5 Comments:
Years ago, when the Unabomber was finally arrested, the media descended upon his small Montana town in droves to interview anyone they could. A local library volunteer let it be known, on camera, that Ted Kaczynski never read books that were "weird or nothing" because they were all written in "American." I just love (not) that flawed logic that equates non-"American" to "weird."
If none of us were ever allowed to look any differently or speak any differently than this land's original inhabitants, a whole lot of us would have to find a new place to call home.
By
Ursula, at 7:08 AM
Please tell me this didn't really happen. You're making this up, right?
By
Carrie, at 8:35 AM
It's hard to imagine this dialogue existing in the year 2007, but it did, and I appreciate you feeling free to write about it, Suneil. I think one of the ways we can begin to challenge this thinking is to expose it. Historically, if someone made inflammatory comments such as these, and you had heard them, perhaps one other person would have heard you tell the story, and then the matter would drop. I'm encouraged by the fact that we now have a means to unveil this incident to a larger population, who, I'm guessing, won't tolerate it. Perhaps it will teach us to be more sensitive to comments we hear, and empower us to challenge the 'fraternity brothers' that will be part of our futures.
Thanks for the post.
By
Peggy Brennan, at 11:47 AM
I agree with my Mom (Peggy)on this one. With the advent of sites like YouTube and Facebook, inflammatory remarks and actions are much less hidden and anonymous than they used to be. Michael Richards found this out the hard way just a few months ago and now his racist rant has been viewed almost 2 million times on YouTube. The fact that this event was captured on tape meant that it could be viewed and judged by anyone. While the Internet exposes racist or otherwise ignorant/hateful people, it can also provide some free publicity to those people as well. The Internet (particularly sites like YouTube) makes no judgement on people's words or actions, but rather the viewers must decide for him/herself what is right. And when this is being broadcast to young people with still-developing moral compasses this can be problematic. I personally believe that upholding a moral standard is the responsibility of each individual. It must be done in the office, in line at the movie or at Starbuck's. While it is not easy to approach a stranger, your action is much more impactful than a scolding from mtqoe33 on the YouTube comments page. It reminds the offenders how personally hurtful a snide remark or ignorant slur can be. I guess it's just easier to fight for justice from behind our computer screens.
By
Maureen, at 10:13 PM
I was recently privy to a similar conversation in Ann Arbor of all places – the great bastion of diversity. At the time, and again after reading your post, Suneil, I wondered if I should have said something. Often when I hear comments like these, I find myself so flabbergasted that by the time I recover myself, the conversation has moved on. The comments stem from a thought process that is as incomprehensible to me as Spanish was to the three fraternity brothers.
This past week, a friend of mine told me about a customer she had to deal with at work who chose to make several disparaging comments to her about women in the workforce. She said to him, “Sir, I don’t appreciate your comments, so please keep them to yourself.” I like it – polite, but direct. I think I’m going to use it.
On a lighter note: Suneil, I truly hope that this unfortunate experience has not turned you off of bad t-shirts forever. They are much too much fun for the rest of us. Just choose with care.
By
Molly, at 11:41 PM
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