Society for Aesthetic Deletions

I'm wearing one of my GenCon-purchased t-shirts at work today. More specifically, this shirt.

I pulled it out of the freshly-laundered pile this morning (as I was putting away all the other stuff), and looked at it.

I could wear this on Sunday. Then Betsy'd get the joke, I thought to myself, no one at work is going to understand it.

But no, the desire to wear it beat down the annoyance of people asking me what the t-shirt means.

[I mean, not even ***Dave would get it, because he got stuck at THE WARRIOR'S APPRENTICE, and it doesn't look like he's going to get that far past it. Definitely not far enough to know when Miles becomes an Imperial Auditor. But I digress.]

I had one comment this morning, and then one later this afternoon. It's too much to try to explain what this t-shirt means to those not in the know. It's much easier to explain something like my new Freedom t-shirt from Lunch Money. I can say "It's a card game, this is one of the cards from it," and they'll nod, and be fine with that.

Then, this afternoon, someone asked to read my shirt. She just nodded when done. I told her she wouldn't get it, no one here at work would. She said she was going to try to fake it, pretend like she knew what was on my shirt.

Ah ha! "But then," I said, "I'd know you were lying. Because if you read my shirt, and you knew the meaning behind it, you'd be saying, 'Cool!' and 'Neat!' and 'Where can I get one!' I could easily tell if someone was pretending." She agreed, and wandered off.

[What I really want to get for my next t-shirt is a few of the ones here. Then there's always the Butterbug puppets...]

So, I really am expecting That Confused Look when I wear this shirt, and some of my other shirts, to my workplace.

But I long for the day, that one day, when I wear one of these shirts, and pass a co-worker in the hall, and they stop me and go "Hey!" and there is that moment of communion, that time where we realize that we're more than just co-workers, more than just employees.

That we have a connection. That we are on the same wavelength. That we can talk about something other than how the computer isn't working, or the printer's on the fritz, or what we're having for lunch as we stand in the little kitchen, waiting for the microwave to nuke our lunches.

We can talk about books. My kind of books.

Then, my friends, heaven shall truly smile upon me.