Shirts For Sale

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.