Last weekend we went to the mall to kill some time while the cleaners were in doing the house. Okay, let me back up. When Debbie left for Pakistan the only thing I asked for was someone to clean the house every 2 weeks so that there would still be a house for her to come home to after 6 months. I know this sounds like a bad excuse but cleaning is a detail oriented persons job and whatever a detail oriented person IS, I am the opposite! I was able to do without the cleaner until school started. Running around picking up my carpool after soccer takes about 75 minutes and still I managed to keep up okay but then Becka started volleyball and life just went haywire. I woke up last week in a filty, dusty mess so I decided that I had to do something. The school where I work has a daytime custodian who also does houses on the side and she gave me a pretty good deal so I decided to take her up on it. Sunday was her initial cleaning day so we decided to get out of the house. We went to breakfast at Bob Evans and then we went to the mall to see what was playing at the movies and walk around. The movies out right now stink so we just started walking around (none of the stores were open yet) and looking at stuff.

Finally, as stores started opening up, the kids asked if they could go look at clothes and things. Jeremy found a really nice zip up hoodie so we got that and Becka got a couple of shirts from Hollister. THEN Jeremy asked if he could go look in Hot Topic for a couple of t-shirts. Now, I don’t like Hot Topic, they carry a lot of stuff that I find objectionable but I figured I would let him look and we could probably agree on a couple of shirts that he could wear. So Becka and I went to Limited Too when I get a text that he’s ready to check out. I head over there (it’s just across the hall) and he’s standing there with 5, count’em 5, $20 each t-shirts.

At the top of the stack is a shirt with a picture of what appears to be a police line-up of every horror movie character in recent memory. Right below that is one with a picture of (I thought) the bad guy from Spiderman 3, not the Sandman but the other dude who gets the black stuff on him toward the end of the movie and goes totally nuts. The next shirt was a reprise of the first shirt with the same number of convicts but they appear to have different faces on them. The fourth shirt was at least a band I had heard of “Bullet for My Valentine”; I don’t even think I got to the fifth shirt to be honest with you.

Some of you have probably figured out the two shirts with the horror movie line-up, this is the band Slipknot which apparently always appears on stage in masks and/or makeup from your favorite nightmare. The middle shirt was for the band “Disturbed” who I’ve only heard of once, on ‘Last Comic Standing’ and I was not really impressed with what the comedian had to say about them. So being the non-confrontational kind of guy that I am; I first tried to explain to my son that 5 $20 t-shirts is ridiculous and he’s going to have to put some back, starting with the one on top. This illicits’ an immediate negative response. Why does this shirt have to go back, I like this band. Ok, first how’d you ever hear this band before and second how could you ever like anything that came out of something looking like that. I mean these guys make KISS look like a troupe from Comic Relief! Next the argument goes to the Disturbed t-shirt but by this time, I’ve had enough of the ‘you’re so oppressive’ crud from him so everything goes back on the shelf and out I walk.

Is it just me?  I realize he’s a teenager and he’s exploring his boundaries but do people really walk around the world with shirts like that on? I mean why can’t Hot Topic carry a couple of Jimmy Buffett shirts that my kid could like. Can I get a witness?