The 11th Commandment

if you've been keeping track of the score between me and god then you know that it had been a tight match until god blew it wide open by stealing my pants. that, in addition to him breaking my camera, left him ahead by some quantity that because i was depantsed, exceeded a million points. well i think by passing the course and then celebrating by eating not one, not two, but three duck fetuses, excuse me feti, i'd closed the gap quite a bit... and then just the other day having my camera repaired by someone who i think surprised even god that he was capable of repairing a loose shoelace let alone a digital camera, evened the score.

which brings us to my favorite shirt: a pink lacoste. now because god made some people mass killing psychopaths, and others indiscriminating rapists, and many people only discriminating racists, and even more who just harbor disgraceful prejudices, and even more people than that, a vast majority even, who are simply prone to making naive generalizations - most people think i'm gay for wearing a pink shirt. the spectrum of characterizations ranges from 'effeminate' to 'faggot,' but neither particularly offends me because i just think it's a cool shirt. maybe because my sister bought it for me right before i left, or because i had never owned a pink shirt, or because it was my newest shirt, or because it's the most expensive shirt i've ever owned, or because i think the magical coolness of pink can somehow rub off on me and make me cool simply by apparel association; but shit, i really liked that shirt... until god ruined it.

ok to be fair, i half ruined it before god finished ruining it. i had worn it out to dinner sometime last week and got some shrimp slop on it, trying to break open and peel those stupid delicious sea roaches. actually now that i think about it though, god's one sneaky son of a bitch, because i didn't exactly ask for the unpeeled shrimp covered in projectile stainy sauce, and he knows how irresistible shrimp are to me. i think i was set up.

anyway, regardless of who was to blame, orange stains speckled the front of my favorite shirt by the end of dinner, and it horrified me because judging by the cleanliness of the attire worn by the locals, i don't believe there's any vietnamese word for "stain," and certainly not any phrase that would translate "please please please remove this stain from my favorite shirt." the first laundromat i took it to reaffirmed this belief, as i got my shirt back reeking of unremoved stains. i hung my head while humming the death song, and laid the shirt to rest on top of my dresser, though i hadn't really lost hope yet.

the best chance for its revival came several days later, after carrie asked me to let her and alison's maid in while they were working. one of her chores was to do their laundry so i inconspicuously slipped my generally-considered-feminine-colored shirt into their laundry pile. i was sure that if anyone could remove these stains, it would be a personal maid who happened to be on her first day of work for these generously paying foreign girls.

i waited anxiously to see the results, and a couple days later they got their laundry back. i unfolded the shirt, and voila! the stains were almost completely gone and definitely faint enough for the shirt to be wearable again. "joy!" but carrie was looking at the back of the shirt with a perplexed look on her face, so i turned it over. "god damn it!" there were 2 huge brand new stains on the back that look like the shirt was smeared in greasy tar-covered ink.

nice one, god.


11. THOU SHALT NOT WEAR PINK, LEST THOU BE A MAN OF WO, OR A FAGGOT. 'MOUT.