Sunday, May 20, 2007
I have one of those shirts that says "Where the hell is Grinnell?" on the front and "Who the hell cares?" on the back. It's a funny thing: I'm always worried that it will be noticed only by people behind me who will presumably think I'm some angsty guy with a bad attitude. However, I've gotten more grief about the front: it offends a surprising number of people! Just yesterday I wore it to a choir rehearsal, and a fellow member, upon seeing it, looked offended. "Sue and I grew up in Iowa, you know," she scolded. "I grew up in Grinnell," I informed her, and that was the end of that, but it's still funny. Surely if I didn't have a connection to Grinnell, I wouldn't care about it enough to wear the shirt?
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I know what you mean. Our cross country shirts have a history of having similar problems. For example, this year's slogan:
"I Upped My Mileage" on the front
"Up Yours" on the back (a la 7-Up shirts, of course)
but I always felt afraid that people would just read the back, and not get it. Also, for 2005 cross country, we had shirts that said "Go Me" on the front, after the popular shirts (popular with runners, anyway) saying "Go Pre" in support of the legendary American runner Steve Prefontaine. That slogan was even worse, because it was even harder to "get it."
On the other hand, I've had a lot of people enjoy my "Where the Hell is Grinnell" shirt in the past. I guess you just have to keep facing people for them to read it in the correct order.
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