Thrift Store Adventures: Offensive Shirts!

I usually don't dig through the clothes at thrift stores. Maybe because I know that the stores don't wash any of the clothes that come in. But I should start perusing the clothing section more often, because when I do I find amazing shirts like these - one sacrilegious, one politically insensitive!

This first shirt is absolutely phenomenal. I found it at Goodwill hidden among the various wolf and dreamcatcher shirts that are all the rage this season. I came near the end of the rack and was about to give up hope when I saw this beauty:

Glorious! It has a giant picture of that Jesus guy with a crown of thorns and a bloody wrist. It looks as though he just got down from the cross and is about to say, "Now see here, guys..." The top of the shirt reads "RELIANCE" in red, bloody letters. I could not believe my eyes when I saw this. I figured that since Goodwill is a religious thrift store, this had to be some super creepy, over-the-top religious shirt that some overzealous Christian wore; I AM in the Bible Belt after all.

Then I looked it up and saw that Goodwill has no religious affiliation. And that Reliance is a skateboard brand. So a more likely scenario is that some punk's mom didn't like her son's tasteless shirt and made him donate it to charity where it ultimately ended up in my hands. So I salute you, offended mother!

Although I can see very few situations where this shirt would be appropriate, I DID wear it the day I found it because I would only be seeing close friends that day. But then I forgot what I was wearing. I went to the store on the way to my friends' house and could not understand why everyone was eyeballing me so hard. A group of Mexican guys walked up to me, all intimidating and stuff, and just kinda glared a bit until they reached right in front of me to grab something off the shelf. True story. When I went up to pay I finally realized what I was wearing and it all made sense. This is a dangerous shirt for a skinny white guy.

The next shirt was in the same store, same day.

The reason it caught my eye is because of the KΣ and ΣΦE. That may require some background. When I was a freshman at Baker University in Kansas (a private Methodist school - though I am neither private nor Methodist) I joined a fraternity, Kappa Sigma. Yes, I know, it seems unlikely that I was in a fraternity, but it's true. Anyway, it was a small school and our rival fraternity was Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Our frat had a human skull that had been stolen by the other fraternity (supposedly) so I found this shirt mildly interesting, what with the skull and crossbones and the giant "WANTED" across the top.

Then I looked at the shirt a little closer... Hmm... "America's Most Wanted - September 11, 2002." Some of you may remember an event that happened exactly one year prior to that date - something called the "September 11 attacks."

This can mean one of two things: 1) Osama Bin Laden joined a fraternity to blend in, but got a little over-excited and decided to make shirts about it, or 2) these frat boys are idiots. I want to know who okayed the idea to have a big party on the one-year anniversary of a huge terrorist attack AND make t-shirts with a skull and crossbones to commemorate it. Seems like someone would have given that a second thought. Oh yeah, I'm in Arkansas.

I had other shirts, but they are not nearly as entertaining as those two. So instead, here is a picture illustrating my failure as a primate:

I don't know how I ever evolved.