So I have this shirt. I quite like it. It's nice and worn in, and it has that wonderful soft worn in feel. It's grey and it says FDNY on the front in red/orange letters with blue trim. It's all faded from the billions of wash cycles it's been through, and they edges are a little frayed. I got it from the wonderful (but unfortunately now closed ) Steve and Berry's. Anyway, if you know me in real life, you've seen me wear it probably at least a dozen times. This, my friends, is my favorite shirt. I love this shirt.
Okay, now that I've made that clear, here comes the tragedy. This shirt has a hole in it. Well, actually three holes, technically. There are two itty bitty holes right in the middle down by the belly button area, but they're okay because this shirt is a big old T shirt so they're really not that noticeable. I think they just give the shirt some added character, like an interesting mole on a person's face. Don't worry, they're really itty bitty holes, you can't see my stomach or anything, I promise. The real tragedy is this gigantic gaping hole in the armpit seam. Like, if I lift my arm, whoa, hope I shaved recently! Now, I'm no seamstress, but it looks pretty unfixable (unfixable's not a word? Well why the hell not?). So with a heavy heart I had relegated my favorite shirt to a pajama shirt.
So when I was packing for Lake Placid, I packed it as such. But then, one day, toward the end of our trip, I only had two pairs of shorts left. The ones I wanted to wear that day were red. I didn't have a shirt to go with red shorts. Except...voila! Out of the bottom of my duffle (how do you spell duffle?)bag appears my favorite shirt! It's calling me - "wear me Allison, I match! Wear meeeeeee!!" So I take it out and examine it, debating in my head whether or not I should wear it, calculating how much I plan on raising my left arm, finally convincing myself that no one knows me here so it won't matter anyway. So on goes the shirt. Damn I forgot how comfy it was. Seriously, it makes the whole world seem a little nicer and softer.
So the day goes on, and I eventually forget what shirt I'm wearing. We park on Main St. to go buy our Olympic passports, and Nicole reads some sign ahead and decides that where she is parked is free even though the rest of the street is metered (honestly I wasn't paying that much attention, parking was clearly her concern since she was driving). So in we go. Fifteen minutes and $30 later, we come out, jay walk across the street, and see a police officer standing in the general area of Nicole's car, writing a ticket. We awkwardly get in the car, hoping it's for the car in front of us. It's not. He comes up to the passenger side as tells Nicole she's being issued a parking citation. A $25 dollar ticket.
Then the cop looks at me and asks if I have family in FDNY. Now, at first I was a little perplexed, but then he points at my shirt. Ah. No, I say, I just like the shirt. He says he has family in FDNY. I stutter something like an 'oh' (if only I was more eloquent). He says he will offer us a deal. So Nicole goes off with him to pay the meter ( 25 cents instead of 25 dollars sounds real good) and I wait in the car.
She comes back complaining, and I say "I think my shirt just saved us a ticket!" Nicole says, "I know it did, he just told me that flat out."
The end.
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