Shirty!
While in Chicago, we went for lunch at Navy Pier. What can I say? We were tourists. As we were lead to our table, one of the waiters stopped me and said, “I love your shirt!” It was my microformats icon shirt, and it turned out he had no idea what it was. He just liked it.
A couple of days later, as we were passing through security at the base of the Sears Tower— Carolyn’s pick for what to do that morning— one of the guards burst out laughing and, pointing to my shirt, said “That’s right on, man! I heard that!” The source of his mirth was my ALA “Please code responsibly” T-shirt, the one with the car-off-a-dock icon on the front.
It’s literally been years since I had a random stranger comment on a shirt I was wearing. Is there something about Chicagoans that they’re more conscious of other people’s shirts?
Nine Responses»
Peter Asquith wrote in to say...
And what a fine style statement that shirt is!
Uncle Jim wrote in to say...
Nope, I have a couple of t-shirts that elicit comments from our fellow Clevelanders–the Dilbert-tie t-shirt I was wearing yesterday being one of my favorites.
Ken wrote in to say...
The same thing happened to me in Chicago in August 2004. I was wearing a red shirt with sailboats on it, and walking away from the Navy Pier, a man walking the other way commented “Hey, I love you shirt!”
vanni wrote in to say...
well – i am in the dark. none of the links you provided showed a picture of the shirt.
Ben Buchanan wrote in to say...
I still get a chuckle out of Tantek’s reaction to my “I (broken entity symbol) Unicode” tshirt, at WE05. My fiancee still gives me stick about it being judged “very geeky” even amongst web geeks ;)
Marc Luzietti wrote in to say...
We Chicagoans are very friendly people, even when we don’t live there anymore. :-)
Adrian Rinehart-Balfe wrote in to say...
I have only visited Chicago once and made the mistake of wearing a Green Bay Packers t-shirt. I received many comments, all negative, but was pleased to find that they were all in good humour.
You might want to leave your favorite Trinidad and Tobago shirt at home when you visit London!
Spike wrote in to say...
It’s like Marc said, we’re friendly in Chicago. :)
Did you enjoy the trip to the top of the tower, btw? defintely something worthwhile even for us locals to do once in a while.
kim wrote in to say...
I think peopl in that aea are more prone to commenting on people who dress differnt it is the same here int he south anyone not waering cowboy boots and hats is poked fun of, and all the locals know he aint from around here.But it is like that everyhwere I suppose, still glad to see someone outhere making a great statement from the shirt.