If You Like My Shirt
Standing inside the overly air-conditioned drugstore, waiting for my friend to finish paying for our frozen pizza and twelve pack of Dr. Pepper, I feel as though time has stopped. This could be attributed to any number of things; the cold, my general desire to be elsewhere, sleep deprivation, the fact that it’s nearing 5:00pm and I haven’t had anything to eat all day. Regardless of causality, I suddenly feel very lightheaded and spacey. I feel that I am on the verge of having a complete, out of body experience, and this is accompanied by the idea that something very profound is about to happen to me.
Prone as I am to everyday magic and deep introspection about seemingly ordinary things, I’m not concerned by this. I have these sort of grand notions quite frequently in my life, though often I’m unable to determine why the moments in question strike me as particularly life-changing. It may very well be nonsense, but I’ve found it best to just submit to these thoughts and let these experiences wash over me with a detached admiration. It can be a tiring lifestyle, but it’s also incredibly rewarding from time to time.
I am pulled from the brink of my full-blown inner monologue by the voice of the cashier, who seems eager to strike up a conversation with me while my friend fights with his debit card and the store’s new chip-reader.
“I like your shirt.”
I recognize this somehow as the moment that I was waiting for, though initially I have no understanding as to why this simple sentence might be so important. In a sort of daze I look down to see what shirt it is I’m wearing, hoping that it will hold some answers as to what I’m experiencing. The profound nature of this moment hits me in waves and I know that there will be more to follow.
I’m not the sort of person who puts a lot of effort into deciding what to wear on any given day.
I find that there are isolated days where what I dress myself in is the most important decision in the world and days when my clothes do actually seem to have a significant impact on my life. These two things rarely seem to correlate, however. I put a lot of consideration into the outfit I wore my first day of high school for instance, and today I couldn’t even tell you what I selected because in retrospect it didn’t matter in the slightest. Today though, I put so little thought into what I was wearing that I literally have to check what shirt it is when I receive the compliment – and I know that years from now I’ll look back and know exactly what shirt it was I wore.
“All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.”
This makes sense to me. It’s not like I’m wearing one of my usual shirts with some witty phrase in binary or a promotional slogan for one of my failed web projects – it’s a band shirt. It has been my experience in life, up until this point in time, that everyone more or less likes Pink Floyd, particularly The Wall. I am no exception to this.
I remember getting the shirt; it was part of a BOGO sale at Hot Topic. I’d needed new shirts for awhile, and I selected the first one (Blink-182) without much hassle. When choosing my second shirt I decided to go with something more classic, and I recalled seeing a T-shirt for The Wall on the website. All they seemed to have in stock was Dark Side of the Moon, which is a great album, but it just didn’t hold the same impact for me as The Wall. My boyfriend was forced to loiter around the checkout while I described the shirt for what felt like the millionth time to the employee who had been tasked with helping me.
They didn’t have it in store. It was no longer listed on the site. Everyone was starting to look at me like I was crazy, and I was struck with the absurd notion that they thought I was lying, like I had nothing better to do on weekends than invent classic rock shirts to argue about. It was a singularly frustrating experience.
“We have a Dark Side of the Moon in stock,” he told me. I sighed.
“Or we have this one on the site,” he showed me a picture of a shirt with the famous artwork of the screaming face emerging from a brick wall.
“I’d really prefer the one with the lyrics,” I said before he asked me to once again describe the shirt I was looking for. Eventually the manager was called in, and it was discovered that they did sell the shirt, but not at that location, and the website was out of stock. I’d have to special order it, and because of that, it didn’t qualify for the sale. I had to buy it and pay extra for shipping.
I’m not a person who enjoys human interaction. If someone had told me before I had gone out that I’d have to special order the shirt, I probably would have just put off going altogether. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to experience the ordeal that the trip had turned into. When the shirt arrived in the mail a week later, it was two sizes smaller than the large that I had ordered, and I just resigned myself to feeling chubby whenever I wore it – even though that was the exact feeling that had driven me to go find new shirts in the first place.
Considering the nightmare that acquiring the shirt had turned into, I normally appreciate when people notice it. I feel like it’s the least the world could do after making things so difficult. Looking down though, I feel strangely disappointed. I think that this existential moment is about to end, because it just strikes me as common sense that everyone should like The Wall.
“Thanks,” I say, looking up at the cashier. I’m prepared to attempt a polite smile, but I see an expression on her face that I recognize. It’s the hesitant look of a quiet, existential epiphany. She looks like she’s debating whether or not to say something. She has no reason to tell me anything, because this is obviously a personal realization for her and I’m a complete stranger. Our eyes lock, and I think she knows that I’ll understand.
“It really does feel that way sometimes, doesn’t it? Like we’re not even people, we’re all just bricks.”
And suddenly she’s not our cashier. She’s a person. I still don’t know her name or who she is fundamentally or even what’s causing her to feel this way, but she seems so incredibly real to me in this exact point in time. We’re sharing an indescribable experience. The world is not my personal narrative, and she is not a background character to my protagonist. The world is everyone’s story in equal measure, and this is just the intersection where two of those threads cross.
This isn’t new information to me. I’m not quite narcissistic enough to believe that the entire world is mine and mine alone. I know that everyone I see is real, and that even strangers seen only in passing are complete, well-rounded individuals who are just as important to the nature of things as I am, if not more so. Knowing something is different than feeling something however, and it’s a rare moment when you can see so clearly into the life of someone you know so little about.
As a writer I spend a lot of time thinking about what’s going on with strangers, and what their lives might be like outside of what I can see. It’s seldom that I get to feel so connected to that life though. It makes me really appreciate the vastness of, well, everything.
“It really does feel like that sometimes,” I tell her.
She smiles and I can tell she truly believes I understand what she’s talking about. “I feel that way a lot at work,” she tells me. She has no reason to confide this with me, and I see it as a confession because as soon as she’s said it, she looks relieved. I wonder how long she’s been holding onto this.
“I do, too.”
This isn’t, in the strictest sense, true. I want to encourage her, which is why I say it, but I don’t ever really feel like a brick. I don’t relate to bricks. I relate to the cartoon doll with minimalistic features. I am Floyd Pinkerton being tossed around by those who I have tried my best to keep at a safe distance. I am the person who has trapped myself inside a structure created by my own insecurities. I keep this to myself, however. I do this for two reasons.
The first is that I understand that she doesn’t see this as a music shirt. I can’t explain how I know this, but I’m almost entirely certain that it’s true. These aren’t classic rock lyrics to her, they’re a sign. They reflect things that on some level she’s been trying to come to terms with. The second reason is that this moment isn’t really about me at all.
There are plenty of moments that are about me – many of which have been defined or initiated by the clothes I wear and the small choices I make without a lot of thought. There have been countless times in my life that are just about me, and I imagine there will be many more to come. This just isn’t one of them. This one is about her, and whatever it is she needs to get off her chest.
“You do the same thing day after day, and it just gets boring. And then that boredom gets frustrating and it builds up until you just want to scream, you know?”
I nod.
Her words are accompanied in my head by artwork – the famous artwork of a screaming face emerging from a brick wall. I wonder in the back of my mind if I would be standing here having this same conversation if I had gotten the other “The Wall” shirt. I’ll never know, but somehow I think not. It would have been just as a relevant to our discussion perhaps, but I don’t think it would have resonated with her in the same way that the lyrics did – much in the same way that the other shirt didn’t resonate with me when I had the chance to buy it.
“It’s just…“she trails off before seeming to snap back to reality, where she’s just talking to a stranger and there is no deeper understanding between us. Our moment has passed.
Life seems to be moving in real time again. My friend’s debit card has finally been accepted by the new machine. Our purchase has pended. My stomach settles with the promise of food now immanent on the horizon. He walks from the store, not taking note of the meaningful exchange between me and the cashier.
I turn back for just a moment, feeling obligated to say something, anything. I want to let her know it’s okay, to tell her things will get better, to let her know that regardless of how she feels, she too is an individual and not a brick. What escapes my mouth is something that is not intended, but feels right to me.
“If you like my shirt, you’ll love the album.”
Prone as I am to everyday magic and deep introspection about seemingly ordinary things, I’m not concerned by this. I have these sort of grand notions quite frequently in my life, though often I’m unable to determine why the moments in question strike me as particularly life-changing. It may very well be nonsense, but I’ve found it best to just submit to these thoughts and let these experiences wash over me with a detached admiration. It can be a tiring lifestyle, but it’s also incredibly rewarding from time to time.
I am pulled from the brink of my full-blown inner monologue by the voice of the cashier, who seems eager to strike up a conversation with me while my friend fights with his debit card and the store’s new chip-reader.
“I like your shirt.”
I recognize this somehow as the moment that I was waiting for, though initially I have no understanding as to why this simple sentence might be so important. In a sort of daze I look down to see what shirt it is I’m wearing, hoping that it will hold some answers as to what I’m experiencing. The profound nature of this moment hits me in waves and I know that there will be more to follow.
I’m not the sort of person who puts a lot of effort into deciding what to wear on any given day.
I find that there are isolated days where what I dress myself in is the most important decision in the world and days when my clothes do actually seem to have a significant impact on my life. These two things rarely seem to correlate, however. I put a lot of consideration into the outfit I wore my first day of high school for instance, and today I couldn’t even tell you what I selected because in retrospect it didn’t matter in the slightest. Today though, I put so little thought into what I was wearing that I literally have to check what shirt it is when I receive the compliment – and I know that years from now I’ll look back and know exactly what shirt it was I wore.
“All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.”
This makes sense to me. It’s not like I’m wearing one of my usual shirts with some witty phrase in binary or a promotional slogan for one of my failed web projects – it’s a band shirt. It has been my experience in life, up until this point in time, that everyone more or less likes Pink Floyd, particularly The Wall. I am no exception to this.
I remember getting the shirt; it was part of a BOGO sale at Hot Topic. I’d needed new shirts for awhile, and I selected the first one (Blink-182) without much hassle. When choosing my second shirt I decided to go with something more classic, and I recalled seeing a T-shirt for The Wall on the website. All they seemed to have in stock was Dark Side of the Moon, which is a great album, but it just didn’t hold the same impact for me as The Wall. My boyfriend was forced to loiter around the checkout while I described the shirt for what felt like the millionth time to the employee who had been tasked with helping me.
They didn’t have it in store. It was no longer listed on the site. Everyone was starting to look at me like I was crazy, and I was struck with the absurd notion that they thought I was lying, like I had nothing better to do on weekends than invent classic rock shirts to argue about. It was a singularly frustrating experience.
“We have a Dark Side of the Moon in stock,” he told me. I sighed.
“Or we have this one on the site,” he showed me a picture of a shirt with the famous artwork of the screaming face emerging from a brick wall.
“I’d really prefer the one with the lyrics,” I said before he asked me to once again describe the shirt I was looking for. Eventually the manager was called in, and it was discovered that they did sell the shirt, but not at that location, and the website was out of stock. I’d have to special order it, and because of that, it didn’t qualify for the sale. I had to buy it and pay extra for shipping.
I’m not a person who enjoys human interaction. If someone had told me before I had gone out that I’d have to special order the shirt, I probably would have just put off going altogether. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to experience the ordeal that the trip had turned into. When the shirt arrived in the mail a week later, it was two sizes smaller than the large that I had ordered, and I just resigned myself to feeling chubby whenever I wore it – even though that was the exact feeling that had driven me to go find new shirts in the first place.
Considering the nightmare that acquiring the shirt had turned into, I normally appreciate when people notice it. I feel like it’s the least the world could do after making things so difficult. Looking down though, I feel strangely disappointed. I think that this existential moment is about to end, because it just strikes me as common sense that everyone should like The Wall.
“Thanks,” I say, looking up at the cashier. I’m prepared to attempt a polite smile, but I see an expression on her face that I recognize. It’s the hesitant look of a quiet, existential epiphany. She looks like she’s debating whether or not to say something. She has no reason to tell me anything, because this is obviously a personal realization for her and I’m a complete stranger. Our eyes lock, and I think she knows that I’ll understand.
“It really does feel that way sometimes, doesn’t it? Like we’re not even people, we’re all just bricks.”
And suddenly she’s not our cashier. She’s a person. I still don’t know her name or who she is fundamentally or even what’s causing her to feel this way, but she seems so incredibly real to me in this exact point in time. We’re sharing an indescribable experience. The world is not my personal narrative, and she is not a background character to my protagonist. The world is everyone’s story in equal measure, and this is just the intersection where two of those threads cross.
This isn’t new information to me. I’m not quite narcissistic enough to believe that the entire world is mine and mine alone. I know that everyone I see is real, and that even strangers seen only in passing are complete, well-rounded individuals who are just as important to the nature of things as I am, if not more so. Knowing something is different than feeling something however, and it’s a rare moment when you can see so clearly into the life of someone you know so little about.
As a writer I spend a lot of time thinking about what’s going on with strangers, and what their lives might be like outside of what I can see. It’s seldom that I get to feel so connected to that life though. It makes me really appreciate the vastness of, well, everything.
“It really does feel like that sometimes,” I tell her.
She smiles and I can tell she truly believes I understand what she’s talking about. “I feel that way a lot at work,” she tells me. She has no reason to confide this with me, and I see it as a confession because as soon as she’s said it, she looks relieved. I wonder how long she’s been holding onto this.
“I do, too.”
This isn’t, in the strictest sense, true. I want to encourage her, which is why I say it, but I don’t ever really feel like a brick. I don’t relate to bricks. I relate to the cartoon doll with minimalistic features. I am Floyd Pinkerton being tossed around by those who I have tried my best to keep at a safe distance. I am the person who has trapped myself inside a structure created by my own insecurities. I keep this to myself, however. I do this for two reasons.
The first is that I understand that she doesn’t see this as a music shirt. I can’t explain how I know this, but I’m almost entirely certain that it’s true. These aren’t classic rock lyrics to her, they’re a sign. They reflect things that on some level she’s been trying to come to terms with. The second reason is that this moment isn’t really about me at all.
There are plenty of moments that are about me – many of which have been defined or initiated by the clothes I wear and the small choices I make without a lot of thought. There have been countless times in my life that are just about me, and I imagine there will be many more to come. This just isn’t one of them. This one is about her, and whatever it is she needs to get off her chest.
“You do the same thing day after day, and it just gets boring. And then that boredom gets frustrating and it builds up until you just want to scream, you know?”
I nod.
Her words are accompanied in my head by artwork – the famous artwork of a screaming face emerging from a brick wall. I wonder in the back of my mind if I would be standing here having this same conversation if I had gotten the other “The Wall” shirt. I’ll never know, but somehow I think not. It would have been just as a relevant to our discussion perhaps, but I don’t think it would have resonated with her in the same way that the lyrics did – much in the same way that the other shirt didn’t resonate with me when I had the chance to buy it.
“It’s just…“she trails off before seeming to snap back to reality, where she’s just talking to a stranger and there is no deeper understanding between us. Our moment has passed.
Life seems to be moving in real time again. My friend’s debit card has finally been accepted by the new machine. Our purchase has pended. My stomach settles with the promise of food now immanent on the horizon. He walks from the store, not taking note of the meaningful exchange between me and the cashier.
I turn back for just a moment, feeling obligated to say something, anything. I want to let her know it’s okay, to tell her things will get better, to let her know that regardless of how she feels, she too is an individual and not a brick. What escapes my mouth is something that is not intended, but feels right to me.
“If you like my shirt, you’ll love the album.”
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// Writing.Com //
About the Piece |
This was something I did as a writing exercise to help me practice writing in the present-tense.
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This is currently being considered for a Writing.Com Quill Award.
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