MILDEW THE RIGHT THING

The Lime Green Shirt

Fifty Cent Piece

This is the latest installment in a recurring segment in which the author debates the merits of his shirts. (See also The French Blue Shirt.) The following is a recurring internal argument both for and against retaining a Lime Green Shirt recently purchased at a Salvation Army Thrift Store in Missouri. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Fifty cents! This thing only cost me fifty cents!

History alone will count the true cost. In lives. In treasure. In dignity. So much indignity.

Do we disapprove?

That is why you bought it, yes? So I will clutch my pearls? Really, sir, your behavior is reprehensible! The cotillion is ruined! Is this where I slap you with my fan, the heat rising under my petticoats?

It’s like a perfect storm of wearable mucus.

I’m gonna go with, “cry for help.” This shirt should have come with an 800 number. Counselors are standing by.

I needed something annoying. You know how I get.

You needed a lime green golf shirt. That’s like saying you needed a Fabergé egg. Or a gold toilet. Or a llama. You want to know what I think?

Yes. No. Maybe.

I think secretly you love this shirt and the lifestyle it represents but you don’t want to be rejected by the plaid pants boys. You say ironic, I say insecure. Tell me, Phil Mickelson, which club are you trying to get into and which club are you trying to get kicked out of?

Thanks for overthinking this. With your help, I’m confident we can siphon off every remaining drop of pleasure from this life.

I’m worried, OK? What I see is a grown-ass man rifling the racks at Salvation Army among sad eyed Keane kids, pee-stained khakis and the collected works of Ken Follett. They don’t sell salvation, here, bruh. Not for fifty cents. Not three for a dollar.

So much drama, Edward Albee, geez. It’s a shirt.

You always come to thrift stores when you’re bored and want something to get the juices flowing.

So?

So, just tell me we’re not going back to “wacky.” All those Hawaiian shirts. All those bowling shirts. All those “trying too hard” shirts. Please God, no. I prayed we were past all that. Say it with me, funny people don’t need funny clothes. Funny people don’t need funny clothes. And if you’re about to say “Robin Williams” to me, don’t.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I hear you. I promise, we’re not going back to wacky. Or wacky tabacky.

I just don’t want to take any steps back. Buying this shirt, even for fifty cents, smells kind of 1998. Go ahead, smell it. That’s early Clinton right there.

Fair point. But the shirt is event specific, OK? We’re going on a road trip to the South where there will be sunshine and palm trees and golf courses and blue skies and performative outrage Republicans. The Lime Green Shirt will fit right in down there, in a terrible, put that away and don’t ever show it to me again kind of way.

There’s no such thing as wrong in Florida, is there?

It’s all free fall and no bottom.

God, this shirt is mesmerizingly ugly, isn’t it? Pitiless. Like something God threw out of heaven.

I spent fifty American cents for something worthless and stupid and garish after two years of the crappiest, scariest, grayest time of my life. Take a long look at this shirt and tell me it didn’t make you smile, just for a second. Look at this snot green sea of transgressive unlovable lime. If we don’t adopt him, who will?

(nodding) Florida deserves this shirt.

So are we going to wear this with the bright orange shorts?

Oh hell, yeah.

We may need a purple hat.

Go big or go home, ace.