Art, Business, Fantasy, Media, Uncategorized

Saving Me From Myself

22 Comments

I have always had a penchant for t-shirts with slogans. When I was 13, I discovered a Northern Sun Alliance catalog while babysitting and was smitten by the huge number of t-shirts with not just slogans, but left-wing, liberal slogans.  (Imagine my excitement when after five years of living in Minneapolis, I discovered that Northern Sun Alliance is actually located here!)  I saved up my money, filled out the order form (yep, a paper order form) and sent off for my very first slogan t-shirt.

(FYI, Northern Sun doesn’t sell this t-shirt any longer but you can still get this slogan on a poster or bumper sticker!)

I have a hard time staying away from t-shirts with sayings that I think are relevant or funny or geeky or all of the above. I also have trouble staying away from State t-shirts and those cheap t-shirts that the DNR sells.  This means that I occasionally have to go through and purge my t-shirt drawer as I have WAY TOO MANY.  Right now I have t-shirts w/ dragons and reindeer, Pluto, Mongols, Gravity: It’s the Law, Pizza John, cats with books, more dragons, State Fair themes (at least 5), Stihl lumberjacks and Rocket Sheep.So you wouldn’t think I’d be in the market for any more…. well, you’d be wrong. Now I’m trying to figure out how to keep myself from getting a t-shirt that says “If the earth were really flat, cats would have knocked everything off the edge by now.”

How do you justify getting something you want when you really don’t need it?

22 thoughts on “Saving Me From Myself”

  1. I satisfy my t-shirt urges by buying shirts for my son. Granddaughters are almost old enough. Northern Sun is still a primary source.

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    1. , welcome to the Trail. I wish I could foist off my t-shirts on my daughter. But she’s 24 now and has a fashion mind of her own. And it does not include geeky slogan t-shirts.

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  2. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    I don’t know that I do justify buying things “I just want.” This is especially true of things I just want to eat. Despite its high content of fructose (or corntose) I eat mountains of sweet corn starting this week. I suppose I could say it is high in fiber to justify it. But really, I just like it.

    My favorite T-shirt is a Dale Chihuli T-shirt from his showroom in Seattle (which was spectacular BTW). It is soft, the right size and feels just wonderful. Next favorite is from Maggies in Bayfield. It is bright yellow and has their signature pink flamingo on it. Right now it is waiting to be washed and reeks of bug dope.

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  3. I have a t shirt from the Stratford Shakespeare Festival that quotes from The Tempest “Hell is empty and all the devils are here”. Very few people recognize the quote. Most think I am making a religious statement.

    I don’t really buy much, so when I do, I don’t feel the need to talk myself into it. I suppose the exception is when we are in a butcher shop and there is a particularly interesting but expensive cut of meat. We justify the purchase buy telling ourselves we can always freeze it. That is why we have two whole pork shoulders, three London broils, and two whole briskets in the basement freezers.

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  4. I used to wear a lot of T-shirts from places I visited, national parks, MPR/Public TV catalogs, etc. But these days fit is a problem. I am very narrow shouldered – an adult small fits decently. But my hips, though not gargantuan, more comfortably require an adult medium. Youth L or XL actually are the better fit overall but their designs are often too juvenile. My T-shirt collection is quite small now. I do own a few adult L or XL but they are strictly sleepwear.

    As to the question – the older I get, the easier it is to say no to things I might “want” but don’t “need”. My justification – the less I buy, the more I have to spend on travel.

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  6. The old “Want” or a “need”! I pull that on the kids once in a while… it doesn’t apply to me. But maybe that’s why I skip garage sales and flea markets. There’s nothing there I NEED.. and why would I WANT more stuff in the basement??

    I have a lot of T-shirts too. Most of them swag from the theater trade shows. A couple left of old ‘crew’ shirts from my stage hand days. (A “good” concert promoter gave T-shirts to the crew after the show closed).
    And I’ve got some Opus T-shirts; (Berkeley Breathed’s Opus) matching ones for me and son or Kelly and I.

    I’ve never heard of Northern Sun T-shirts. There is a local production company called ‘Northern Sun’ run by a really good guy with good equipment and nice people. Ben Assiff and his Northern Sun are good guys.

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      1. I rationalize eating out too often by saying – I’m going to get a part-time (paying) job soon…

        I love funny t-shirts, but most of them have a crew neck that makes them too warm, so I sometimes cut the neck-hole bigger, and then they’re very casual. My favorite (from the 70s, and long gone) said “I am a virgin” and then in tiny print: “This if a very old t-shirt.” Will look and see if I have anything really funny…

        Love this cat one up top – I see there’s another version at the Northern Sun website: https://www.northernsun.com/

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  8. Husband buys books he doesn’t need on vacation and justifies the purchases by saying the books remind him of the places he has visited.

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  9. Life’s too short to deny oneself every small (or large) desire. But I don’t want many things anymore. Most folks over 60 seem to start thinking that way, especially if they’ve had to help clean out grandma’s or mom’s old house and deal with the tons of things that were collected and saved “just in case.” Classic for people who lived through the Great Depression.

    I balance satisfying my wants (I am going to buy that Cinnabon and savor that caramelly, nutty, gooey goodness, but then I’m going to spend an extra hour exercising this week to burn off those 1000 calories of sinfully delicious pleasure.

    Chris in O-town

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