When you have a child go from grade school to high school,
you know there is going to be a difference in the amount of money you spend day
to day. And if that child is a daughter, you know that amount may be
astronomical.
But no one ever warned me it would be on t-shirts.
I knew we would spend money at the Buckle. No high school
girl can survive without Miss Me, Rock Star, and BKE. At least that’s what my
daughter believes. Especially at Von Maur High, whoops, I mean Southwest High
School. And we put Daddy’s credit card to good use. Daddy would, of course,
want her to have a new white leather jacket. Yeah, someone is around her little
finger.
I knew we would be depositing loads of money into her lunch
account. Somehow she doesn’t have time to eat breakfast at home. And who can
survive without a flavored water to get her through the day? I know she drinks
several of these a day, because they multiply in her bedroom every evening. We
have a water bottle infestation problem.
I knew we would have to pay for sports passes and athletic
shoes, and green practice spanx, and SilverHawk crested ankle braces, and ugly
black mid-calf athletic socks, as well as all those other must-haves. You know
you can’t be the only person on the team who doesn’t wear Birkenstocks between
the locker room and the practice gym. Yes, God is laughing at me, paying me
back for all the things I just had to have in high school.
But t-shirts? Really? I wasn’t aware of was how much money I
would be sending to school every week just to buy t-shirts. There is always a
new t-shirt everyone just has to have.
For example, the first week of school everyone was
encouraged to buy these plain orange t-shirts to wear to the first football
game of the season. The SilverHawks played the Gators, and the student section
was encouraged to go “Gator Hunting” in these orange t-shirts. The student
section was glaringly orange with camo sprinkled in here and there.
The next week, or else later that same week, she “had to”
buy a SilverHawk’s nest t-shirt. The logos were glow-in-the-dark. The plan was
to turn off the lights at the rally so they would all be matchers. Or maybe
they were all just supposed to glow in the dark at the next home game. I don’t
know. But somehow we ended up dishing out money for another shirt.
And that doesn’t begin to encompass all the sports t-shirts she “has to” have. All
the girls on the reserve volleyball team got matching purple warm-up t-shirts
with their coach. They are super cool. They have their name and number on the
back, and a big volleyball with all the teammates’ first names and numbers on
the front. They will be great keepsakes someday. So that’s another one we had
to fold and add to the pile.
And the orders keep coming. A few weeks ago it was “Sideline
Sweetie” t-shirts with the boyfriend’s name and football number on the back of
the t-shirt. Yeah, I said boyfriend, actually now ex-boyfriend. But I’m not
allowed to talk about it. (What kind of boy breaks up with a girl a week before
Homecoming, asks another girl to the dance, and then texts the first girlfriend
two hours before the dance to make sure she isn’t going with a date? It’s the
same kind of boy who texts and asks where she is during the dance and then interrupts
her the only time she dances with another boy at the dance to tell her that he
really needs to talk to her. Oops, I guess I talked it.)
Besides, I think she is considering if she will sell the
Sweetie t-shirt on Craig’s list to the lowest bidder. (Yes, I said lowest.) My
suggestion would be to sign the shirt and then pass it along to the next girlfriend,
and continue it down the line until the end of the football season. Then the
boy can take it home and hang it on the wall as a nice girlfriend trophy piece.
Oh the drama of teenage romance.
Yes, that was a lovely waste of $16. Now there’s a new
boyfriend and he says she is not allowed to wear the ex-boyfriend’s t-shirt. This
one we like. This boy doesn’t lie or cheat. Actually he may dote on her as much
as her daddy. Oops, I talked about it again.
Clearly someone is making a bucket load of money at
Southwest in t-shirt paraphernalia. I’m
not exactly sure how you get in on this racket. It’s not necessarily high
school sponsored clothing. The sports shirts are ordered by one of the team
mom’s. The Sweetie t-shirts came through some casual girls group, who by the
way, have their own Facebook chat group. That could be a blog all on its own.
I think it would be cool someday to make a quilt out of all
these high school t-shirts. It would be better than sitting in the back of the
closet or taking up prime drawer real estate. I think, however, I’ll skip the
Sweetie t-shirt. I think her volleyball friends may have plans for that shirt
anyway. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, except, perhaps, that of her
best girlfriends.
