Memory Mix-Up

A few years ago I got a sweet G.I. Joe t-shirt for Christmas. Those of you who know me know how much I love G.I. Joe because it takes me back to my youth, when I had enough of the toys to invade a small country. As such, you can imagine my dismay when after wearing the shirt just a few times I noticed a small hole in it. The hole occurred where all the holes in my shirts seem to form: under the armpit where the sleeve meets the shirt on the right side. Always the right side. I assume this is because I am right-handed, but that might be the dumbest reason for a shirt to wear out ever. Now, this certainly wasn't enough for me to get rid of it but I decided I had to be careful about when I was going to wear it and the shirt was subsequently buried at the back of one of my drawers. (Looking back this logic is rather stupid, as it is a G.I. Joe t-shirt. What formal occasion would it be ok to wear a G.I. Joe t-shirt, but only as long as it was hole-free? It is not like I could wear it to a job interview, hole or not. I should have been wearing it this entire time, but simply conscious to not reach for high things (which would have been the case anyway as the shirt is not long enough.))

During the last couple of months I have gotten rather proficient about sewing these kinds of holes shut. Like I said, a number of my shirts seem to develop this problem, so it was either get better at fixing them or go on a shopping spree. Since I don't want to replace a chunk of my wardrobe, repair seemed like the better alternative. My sewing work might not look the best, but it gets the job done. Besides, the only way people notice is if they are right up next to me and close enough to get a good look and I don't know why anyone needs to be that close to my armpit. So, I was repairing another shirt the other night when I finally remembered that I had been planning to fix this G.I. Joe shirt for years and it just had a habit of slipping my mind. But, I was finally at the point where I had the tools in my hand and idea in my mind at the same time, so I pulled the shirt out, ready to get to work at sewing the hole closed. There was just one small problem with my plan: there was no hole in the shirt.

At first I thought that I must have just gotten the location wrong. But, I went over this shirt from top to bottom and didn't find a single rip or fray. In fact, because of how infrequently I have worn it for the last couple of years, it is actually in better shape than the majority of the t-shirts I wear on a regular basis. The only place this short looks worn out is the logo, which is supposed to look worn out to give it that "vintage without actually being vintage, because why would a 10 year-old own a shirt this size?" look. I have no idea how it happened, but I must have been wearing another shirt and simply gotten the two mixed up in my head. I can only assume that I have a shirt which looks very similar and mentally switched them. Either that or I have had this problem with so many of my shirts that I started to assume every one of my shirts needed to get repaired. (I realize this makes me sound like I'm walking around wearing nothing but shredded t-shirts, but I assure you that is not the case. It's like one out of every 20 and only the ones I have had for years, but like too much to get rid of.) The point is that I had been avoiding wearing this shirt for no good reason.

The comforting part is that this kind of mental mix-up is hardly exclusive to me. It is actually very common for people to become convinced in their mind that a wrong is totally right and once that happens there is no changing their thinking. The famous sports example happened when Danny Ainge got into a fight with Tree Rollins during a game and Tree bit Ainge. But, because Danny had a reputation as an annoying defender and was the one who got ejected from the game, over time the narrative switch in enough people's minds to the point history became convinced the roles were reversed and it was Danny who bit Tree. However, this kind of switch can happen in every walk of life. I mean, how many people in this world mess up song lyrics and then over time become convinced they are 100% correct about how the song goes? (There are some people who will go to their graves singing "I see a radio and I want to paint it black." At least I am not that bad.) Instead I'm going to look at this like I just got a new shirt all over again. All's well that ends well. Except for one thing: I obviously have another shirt with a hole in it, but now have no idea which one.