I Hate This

by David Hansen

First appeared in Cleveland Magazine, April, 2002

The hour had come. The call was loud and clear.

"David, you have too damn many T-shirts."

That was my wife, and she wasn't even being snarky. It's just that she had done her share of the laundry that day and she was honestly, finally, overwhelmed. She stood there, a hamper full of my cotton tees propped against one hip, staring into an open drawer already full of cotton tees.

Yes, OK, she was right. And I knew there two other boxes of them stored away in the attic. It was Labor Day. I was 33 years old. Look what Christ did in that amount of time. And I have too damn many T-shirts.

In my defense, I had already started to cut down. I had recently begun wearing T-shirts with no logos. Stripes are fine, and solid colors are nothing to be ashamed of. Those were shirts I was fairly certain I could wear to, say, a nice restaurant. Even so, whenever I chose to sport one of those 100 percent cotton "beefy" tees instead of, perhaps, a nice button-down or polo shirt, something inside me was reminded of that "Seinfeld" episode in which Jerry tells George what sweatpants say to the world. They say, "I give up."

But T-shirts can say so much more than that. In a world where first impressions mean everything, a T-shirt gives you the opportunity to say to someone you have never even met before - your future spouse, a potential employer, maybe the President of the United States - you get to say to them "I like beer" or perhaps "I like beer a lot" or maybe even "I like one particular brand of beer more than any other brand available." You didn't mean to, it wasn't your first choice of greeting. But it was what your T-shirt said before you even opened your mouth.

I grabbed a large garbage bag, and valiantly made my way into the attic.

All year, ever since the spring I had found myself doing things like this. I seemed possessed by the idea of proving or validating my adulthood. I began taking an interest in my lawn. Bills were being paid obsessively on time. Now I was going to finally ditch my T-shirt collection.

There were, oh my, three boxes up there, not two. Almost one hundred shirts. Don't even do the math, OK, that means I have spent at least $1,000 on these things. I tried not to think about it, and just dug in. Sorting through them was a journey through my 20s, remembering old friends, old shows ... more than two dozen shirts were dedicated to Cleveland area theater companies, and those were just the ones I helped create.

Some were simply humiliating. How cool is it to announce to people that you saw Elvis Costello or Sting live in concert - in 1991? My peers were checking out Nine Inch Nails that season, and I couldn't let go of Sting.

Oh, but I finally did see Nine Inch Nails and I had the proof: a concert T-shirt from 1995 when he and David Bowie did that super-hero team-up tour I caught at Blossom. The design on the shirt is exquisite in its terribleness, a lame swirling together of artwork from each of their latest album covers on a urine-colored tunic.

And I paid twenty bucks for it. I am an ass.

After a while, I started hearing this archaeology professor lecturing in my head: "Working back from the late 1990s (see Exhibit A: 'Cleveland - It's Fun!' worn by our subject on 'The Drew Carey Show'), we can trace this man's social life through a succession of middle-of-the-road concert choices (Barenaked Ladies '95, Duran Duran '93, Tears for Fears '90), an embarrassing number of amusing-at-the-time 'Hocking River Masters Surfing Classics' shirts dating from his college years at Ohio University, to these delicate, threadbare numbers with which he simply could not part, left over from his time with the Bay High Thespians ..."

So many shirts, so little time! Man, it's not as if I was ever in a fraternity or something, so what was my excuse? 'Hard Rock Cafe: Cleveland?' Hello? Was I drunk?

I got sick of looking at them. An entire third of my life was defined by these things, and it all seemed so cheap, commercial and humorless. They simply all had to go, and I began blindly stuffing them into the bag. I'd pile them all into a box on the side porch and e-mail my friends to stop by and take what they wanted. The rest I'd drop off at the AIDS Task Force bin. If it was really, really comfortable I could wear it to the gym. Guys like me can wear anything to the gym.

I was just reaching the bottom when I found the old, bootleg Calvin & Hobbes shirt I had gotten at school. It was a big reproduction of Calvin's smiling face. It's cute. I pulled it out and sat down for a moment, staring at it.

My son's name is Calvin.

He died in March, 2001, shortly before he was born.

We named him after his great-grandfather, not after the cartoon, but the association will always be there whenever I read those strips about the mischievous boy who never grows up.

You know, most of the time I remember why I started going to the gym three times a week and stopped just talking about it. Most of the time I remember why I stopped doing plays so I can spend more nights at home. Most of the time I remember why I've stopped making to-do lists and have just started doing things.

And sometimes I have to sit down in my attic and remember.

So I kept that T-shirt. And the one I wore on the TV show. And a couple of others. We buy them to remember stuff, don't we?

But you still won't see me wearing them very much anymore. From now on, when I meet someone new, I don't want to let some T-shirt have the first word.




by David Hansen First appeared in Cleveland Magazine, April, 2002 The hour had come. The call was loud and clear. "David, you have too damn many T-shirts." That was my wife, and she wasn't even being snarky. It's just that she had done her share of the laundry that day and she was honestly, finally, overwhelmed. She stood there, a hamper full of my cotton tees propped against one hip, staring into an open drawer already full of cotton tees. Yes, OK, she was right. And I knew there two other boxes of them stored away in the attic. It was Labor Day. I was 33 years old. Look what Christ did in that amount of time. And I have too damn many T-shirts. In my defense, I had already started to cut down. I had recently begun wearing T-shirts with no logos. Stripes are fine, and solid colors are nothing to be ashamed of. Those were shirts I was fairly certain I could wear to, say, a nice restaurant. Even so, whenever I chose to sport one of those 100 percent cotton "beefy" tees instead of, perhaps, a nice button-down or polo shirt, something inside me was reminded of that "Seinfeld" episode in which Jerry tells George what sweatpants say to the world. They say, "I give up." But T-shirts can say so much more than that. In a world where first impressions mean everything, a T-shirt gives you the opportunity to say to someone you have never even met before - your future spouse, a potential employer, maybe the President of the United States - you get to say to them "I like beer" or perhaps "I like beer a lot" or maybe even "I like one particular brand of beer more than any other brand available." You didn't mean to, it wasn't your first choice of greeting. But it was what your T-shirt said before you even opened your mouth. I grabbed a large garbage bag, and valiantly made my way into the attic. All year, ever since the spring I had found myself doing things like this. I seemed possessed by the idea of proving or validating my adulthood. I began taking an interest in my lawn. Bills were being paid obsessively on time. Now I was going to finally ditch my T-shirt collection. There were, oh my, three boxes up there, not two. Almost one hundred shirts. Don't even do the math, OK, that means I have spent at least $1,000 on these things. I tried not to think about it, and just dug in. Sorting through them was a journey through my 20s, remembering old friends, old shows ... more than two dozen shirts were dedicated to Cleveland area theater companies, and those were just the ones I helped create. Some were simply humiliating. How cool is it to announce to people that you saw Elvis Costello or Sting live in concert - in 1991? My peers were checking out Nine Inch Nails that season, and I couldn't let go of Sting. Oh, but I finally did see Nine Inch Nails and I had the proof: a concert T-shirt from 1995 when he and David Bowie did that super-hero team-up tour I caught at Blossom. The design on the shirt is exquisite in its terribleness, a lame swirling together of artwork from each of their latest album covers on a urine-colored tunic. And I paid twenty bucks for it. I am an ass. After a while, I started hearing this archaeology professor lecturing in my head: "Working back from the late 1990s (see Exhibit A: 'Cleveland - It's Fun!' worn by our subject on 'The Drew Carey Show'), we can trace this man's social life through a succession of middle-of-the-road concert choices (Barenaked Ladies '95, Duran Duran '93, Tears for Fears '90), an embarrassing number of amusing-at-the-time 'Hocking River Masters Surfing Classics' shirts dating from his college years at Ohio University, to these delicate, threadbare numbers with which he simply could not part, left over from his time with the Bay High Thespians ..." So many shirts, so little time! Man, it's not as if I was ever in a fraternity or something, so what was my excuse? 'Hard Rock Cafe: Cleveland?' Hello? Was I drunk? I got sick of looking at them. An entire third of my life was defined by these things, and it all seemed so cheap, commercial and humorless. They simply all had to go, and I began blindly stuffing them into the bag. I'd pile them all into a box on the side porch and e-mail my friends to stop by and take what they wanted. The rest I'd drop off at the AIDS Task Force bin. If it was really, really comfortable I could wear it to the gym. Guys like me can wear anything to the gym. I was just reaching the bottom when I found the old, bootleg Calvin & Hobbes shirt I had gotten at school. It was a big reproduction of Calvin's smiling face. It's cute. I pulled it out and sat down for a moment, staring at it. My son's name is Calvin. He died in March, 2001, shortly before he was born. We named him after his great-grandfather, not after the cartoon, but the association will always be there whenever I read those strips about the mischievous boy who never grows up. You know, most of the time I remember why I started going to the gym three times a week and stopped just talking about it. Most of the time I remember why I stopped doing plays so I can spend more nights at home. Most of the time I remember why I've stopped making to-do lists and have just started doing things. And sometimes I have to sit down in my attic and remember. So I kept that T-shirt. And the one I wore on the TV show. And a couple of others. We buy them to remember stuff, don't we? But you still won't see me wearing them very much anymore. From now on, when I meet someone new, I don't want to let some T-shirt have the first word.