The most dependable cycle in a guy's life is the one his T-shirt makes from hamper to laundromat to his back, repeating each month with the faithfulness of menstration.Some guys claim that it's just a T-shirt, but I detect a hint of commitment and unfading love in every guy I see donning a love-worn shirt.
The only thing that can shatter that bond is a closet raid from mom, who wants to destroy the bond by sending the moth-eaten, dingy shirts to the round file. But if a T-shirt can withstand the mom raids (and the similar wife/girlfriend raids), it may claim a place in a guy's dresser for upwards of 11 years, according to one account.
Wow. Eleven years. That's longer than most marriages.
Girls may come and go, but a boy takes comfort in knowing that his '93 Lollapolooza T-shirt will always be there.
It shares with him happy moments, like building the shed with dad, drunken parties, the Dave Matthews Band concert, meeting the love of his life, fist fights, the day he quit his job. Well, it probably shares every moment with him. And he'll probably deny remembering what he wore on any of these occasions because it's just a shirt, and he has so many.
It is the staple of his wardrobe. Just about every day he pulls it over his bedhead and pops his arms out the sleeves.
And if you hang out with a guy long enough, you'll start to recognize his T-shirts like the old friends they are to him. There's the "washing the car" shirt. The "perfect with cargo pants" shirt. The "going to the game" shirt. And the "I'm not dressing up anymore, this is the fourth date" shirt.
So what fosters this devotion to cotton-poly blends?
I think it's the last remmnants from the stage of childhood where you form attachments to inanimate things. So T-shirts are just blankies for grown men. A shabby screened tee is the last soft and fuzzy thing a guy can cling to without being any less of a man.
It may have blood on it or say "Hooters", but I believe tees are just a throwback to an age of innocence that they secretly want to extend by hanging onto those tissue-thin, crackle screened T-shirts with stains and thread hanging from the hem.
Ah, whatever, they're just too cheap to buy new ones.