You don’t want to hide a gift sweatshirt in your closet, but the four presents given by my ‘darling doting’ children make me consider that possibility.
I’m talking about sweatshirts with two-inch-high letters emblazoned across my chest. Just like comedian Rodney Dangerfield, the words make me wish for a little more respect.
The sweatshirt with white letters on orange cloth reads, “I used to teach, but now I have no class.” Other shoppers at the supermarket giggled. One lady even shared her own classroom travails with me. Then invited me to her teacher’s meeting.
Those white letters on gift black sweatshirt that read “A Pun at Maturity is Fully Groan” exposed me to an even lower form of humor—the guffaws when younger sailors gathered at the bar.
White letters on brown sweatshirt read “Ancient orators tended to Babylon”. What really hurt my feelings happened when some readers confirmed they had heard I often delivered speeches about just anything.
The last gift-shirt came after I wrote a thriller called “Anne Bonny’s Wake.” The sequel “Guadalajara High” now ready for the printer. The givers, and other readers who chortle, should pay close attention. I repeat the black letters on a gray sweatshirt that I now wear while I compose on my computer:
“Careful, or you’ll end up in my novel.”
Image from Michal Jarmoluk at Pixabay
