Souvenirs

Wednesday evening, I went pawing through a bin of my old T-shirts. I have now lived long enough that the number of T-shirts that I own has swollen past the confines of my dresser drawers. That would be four of them. Four drawers stuffed full of T-shirts of various whimsical designs and colors. One of these drawers is devoted exclusively to those shirts bought at various music venues to commemorate the shows that I have seen. Some of them are the only links to evenings that I did my best to forget, and others that I cling to desperately. For me, it's not a concert until I have bought the shirt.
I know that I'm not the only one. They can see me coming. They've got tables set up right at the front of the arena with telephone lines open, ready to take my credit card numbers to pay whatever ridiculous sum they see fit to attach to a Beefy-T with some rock star's face on one side, and a list of cities that I won't be visiting on the other. Once I've purchased my overpriced merchandise, I purchase my overpriced souvenir cup of Coca-Cola and head on up to my overpriced seat.
And I've been doing this for some thirty-odd years. If it sounds like I'm a little jaded, that's probably just because of the inflation, and the Internet. It used to be that having that concert T-shirt was a badge of recognition. Of course I was at the show. I've got the shirt, don't I? Nowadays you can go on-line and grab memorabilia from the hottest tours without leaving the comfort of your little home. Why stand in line with all those sweaty heathens and their drunken friends, when you can have UPS deliver your merchandise while you listen to streaming audio of last night's show? Judging from the piles of cotton shirts lingering in my house, I'd have to say it's because I'm old school. That's why.