With Shirts Like These...Who Needs Friends?

Welcome to my blog, Weary Reader. 

No doubt life's troubles are weighing heavily on your shoulders.

Well sit down here, next to Uncle Tochi, and I'll tell you a story.

I had a friend...

We'd known each other for quite a few years, but like all friendships eventually do, ours dissolved into an acrimonious rivalry so consumed by hatred and murderous anger, that to this day, for either of us to speak the other's name results in a fit of spitting and cursing that would embarrass the 1980s Eddie Murphy.

It all began, as have all the great tragedies throughout history, with buying a shirt.

I bought this shirt from an online retailer called "Anazon" (I'm shopping for blog sponsors, so no freebies). It looked like a good enough shirt in the photo, a modern, "rock-n roller" type shirt: gray and black with faux pearl buttons & a zipper pocket.
But what the hell do I know about shirts anyway?
I mean sure, I've been wearing them all my life, but what do I really know about them?
What do any of us really know about shirts?

Cheesus, Tochi...did you ever just splash open a can o' metaphysicality.
The Shirt...can we ever understand it?
...Does anyone else hear the sound of one hand clapping?
Well, this is no time to contemplate the shirt, as tempting as that is.
I'll try to stay on topic here.

So I buy this shirt online and get it in the mail the next day.
I always next-day-air everything I buy.
So anyway, I get the shirt but there's a problem: shirt don't fit.

That's right: shirt don't fit.

So I hang on to the shirt for a few days...just staring at it. There it is. Useless shirt... all draped across the back of my couch...mocking me.
Day and night I watch that shirt.
I had plans for that shirt.
Big Plans.
We were gonna go places together, do things, me and that shirt.
But now?
Not likely.

So one day it's about eight in the morning and I'm sitting in my armchair, drinking straight gin just staring at that shirt.
Then it hits me. No, not the shirt...although by this time the shirt had every right to. An idea hit me:
I'll give this shirt to my friend, whom I'll only identify here as "Randy" (Saunders of 1371 Edgecourt Road, Perrysburg OH, 43551 Phone # (419) 874-5767).

Randy’s a bit shorter and his shoulders are not nearly as broad and masculine as mine are. The shirt should fit him well. I see Randy a few days later and mention that I have this shirt, it doesn't fit and, hey, I'll give it to him. Sounds good he says and I resolve to give him the shirt at a later date.
Yet parting is such sweet sorrow and once back at my house I try the shirt on again, just to see. To see what might have been, what "if," I tell myself as I stand in front of my mirror, just sobbing, blubbering with tears pouring down my face as I say goodbye to this, by now my favorite, shirt.

Then I realize, "Hey...if I don't button it up, I can still wear this shirt." I can wear it open and it looks fine, sleeves are long enough and all that, blah, blah, blah.
So now, situation resolved, I keep the shirt. The promise to my friend Randy is quickly forgotten.
So all is well, I'm running around town in my new shirt and life is grand.
I mean I'm netting some serious ass in this shirt. Big Time Ass. You've heard the expression, "A decent shirt can snare a man more sweet young ass than anything else, despite even that man's glaringly obvious character flaws?" Well I'm here to tell you it is true, friends.

Anyway, I don't call my buddy to tell him I changed my mind. I figure it's not a big deal, it's not like I promised him a kidney. I mean, he's got a job...he can afford shirts.
I've never even seen him without a shirt, come to think of it...
Randy never mentions the shirt, so I figure he forgot about it.
So five, six months go by...

Then it all erupts like a volcano, like a rancorous, polyester cotton-blend Vesuvius.
To put it another way: The Shirt Hit the Fan. (Please see "NOTE" at bottom of page.)
I hadn't planned on this worm turning on me, but Brothers and Sisters...that worm turned.

A few months down the road there comes a time when I need a ride to the airport. We all know a reliable friend is necessary for an important job like an airport run and Randy has been for years a reliable friend.
Randy agrees to drive me to the airport and that's it.

When the day of my trip arrives I'm waiting for my ride, eying the clock as time passes. Mind you it's a 40 minute drive to the airport, plus check-in and all that, so I'm expecting him like 2 hours before my flight time.
Tick, tock, tick...the hands on the clock turn...but no Randy. I mean, I can keep my cool, but that airplane isn't going to wait for me, so I'm getting anxious.

Finally, with barely any time to spare, I call Randy to see where the hell he is.

"Hello," I hear him say on the end of the line.
"Yes, uh, Randy. This is Tochi and I wondered if you were on your way to pick me up yet?"
"Oh, yeah, Tochi, well I was about to come get you, but I realized I can't."
"What do you mean, ‘you can't’? I have an airplane to catch in an hour!"
He says, "Well, I apologize, but I can't leave my house. I don't have a shirt to wear."
Now he was cool during this whole conversation, I mean cool as ice, and the implications of what he was saying did not hit me right away.
I said, "So what are you doing?" "Just standing there in your bedroom talking to me on the phone, with no shirt on?"
"Yep" says Randy.
So I lose my shit.


"What the sweet fuck do you mean you don't have a shirt!? How can you not have a shirt to wear!? I've never seen you without a shirt in your life, and now you're telling me, that at this, the hour before my important airplane flight, that you can't leave your house to pick me up because you don't have a fucking shirt to wear!?!?"

"Yeah...that's what I'm saying...it's too bad," he says, "all my shirts are dirty, and if I would've had just one more shirt in my closet to wear, I'd be on my way now."
Well, I'm no idiot; what he was saying to me suddenly became clear...
There was a humming sound...it started off quiet and got louder and louder, til I could hear nothing but my teeth rattling behind this hum...
Then everything went red to black...

I don't remember much after that, not for a day or two, anyhow.
Police reports and court testimony show there was an incident involving me, a can of gasoline and Randy tied to his bed while I burned all of his clothes in a huge pile on his bedroom floor. I do recall a lot of screaming...I'm not sure if it was his or mine. I like to believe the high, womanish screams were his...but I can't be sure.

I faced some pretty stiff charges for that little "episode," but thanks to the loose definition of temporary insanity in my home state I walked away a free man.

There was a brief period of convalescence, followed by a long period of revenge planning.
About a year later, through an elaborate series of deceptions, Randy was tricked into delivering the eulogy at his sister's funeral while wearing a gorilla costume, in front of a horrified congregation of friends and family.
So you see…
It all worked out in the end.

NOTE: SHIT. SHIRT. GET IT?