Ladies and gentlemen, pack your shit.

I think it’s time to leave.

There comes a time in all of our lives when a sign introduces itself into our lives that pretty much serves as the harbinger of bad things to come.  Rest assured I’ve seen plenty of them in the last several years.  Even then, I’ve always managed to hold out hope that such events were nothing but signs that it’s always darkest before the dawn.

Ya gotta bust some eggs to make an omelet.

Granted I don’t like eggs, so that metaphor falls short.

It all started a few weeks ago when I picked up a new t-shirt over at the Mega-Lo-Mart.  One thing you need know about my t-shirt procurement practices is that said garment has to fall into one of two very specific categories.

1.  Dark solid (duh)

Or

2.  Funny and/or unique

Strangely enough, I have plenty of funny and/or unique t-shirts which I have collected over the years.  My shirts which feature the stars of Bloom County and Outland are still intact.  Look it up.  That’s a completely different, yet to be written blog.

Concert shirts that I bought in the 80’s were neatly packed away in a storage bin in the garage up until a few years ago when Juniorette dug them out and started wearing them as part of her daily wardrobe.

In the last few years, I’ve even received a few as gifts.

<tangential rant>

Okay, as much as I would like to continue waxing rhapsodic on my epic t-shirt collection, I can’t.

You see ladies and gentlemen, I’m getting a little pissed off right now.  I’m starting to see another harbinger, and it’s a different harbinger from the one I initially intended to discuss in this vast wasteland today.

Put very simply, my pictures are missing.  Apparently a few years worth of moments of my life captured digitally on an iPhone and subsequently loaded to the TharpSter LapTop are playing a nasty game of peek-a-boo with your favorite blogger on the whole worldwide web.  They might be in the cloud right now, however as of late, it seems like the only pics that can be captured out of the cloud right now feature selfies taken by starlets in various states of nekid undress and the bumpage of uglies.  Since none of my pics rise to such an occasion, they may be harder to find.

Yeah, yeah, I know.  The struggles of the first world are alive and well.  The bills are paid.  There’s food in the fridge.  The kids are fine.  The wife is fine.  The lawn is mowed.  The guacamole hasn’t turned black.  The dogs use the back yard  instead of the living room floor as their biological waste receptacle.  In the meantime, friends, family, acquaintances, and people I’ve never met deal with the day to day struggles of spinal stenosis, drug abuse, paresthesia of the perineum, domestic violence, writer’s block, civil war, prairie dogs, the periodic table of elements, pop music,  ebola outbreaks, lying politicians, questionable tattoo designs, bankruptcy, spam, pyramid schemes, Glitter, bad foreign policy, race war profiteers, and poorly executed guitar solos.

Even still, it ticks me off that I can’t find a few years worth of pictures.  The day I had planned to sit and do nothing will now be occupied by looking for a bunch of stupid ass pictures on my computer.

I am literally awash in emotions right now.

</tangential rant>

Okay, I think I’m better now.  I stepped away for a few, sorted some laundry, and told the dog to stop looking at me that way.  A violin version of the song Thunderstruck just came up on the steady stream of randomized noise being fed into my skull via my aural cavities and a pair of ear buds.

I’m good to go.

So I got a new t-shirt a few weeks ago.  It features the different expressions of a Wookie.  To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I bought a Star Wars shirt, but I would have to say  it was back in the days when the fact that Han shot first was clearly undisputed and not even in the realm of discussion.

Shortly after picking it up, I wore it to the gym.  The attendant saw the shirt, and demanded to know why I was sporting pics of his girlfriend.  TharpSter points were earned by the attendant with that one.

A week later, I found myself in the cereal aisle (or serial isle, take your pick) at the grocery store seeking out the generic store brand of my favorite sugar frosted flakes.  You really have to give it to those with the balls who continue to market their sugar-laden products with the name “sugar”.  Certainly “Sugar Frosted Flakes” are still around, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the likes of “Sugar Smacks” and “Super Sugar Crisp”.  Come to think of it, I was probably watching Han Solo pre-emptively blast Rodian bounty hunters to oblivion in crowded cantinas around the last time I saw any of those products without bastardized names on the shelves.

Anyway, I was wearing the new Star Wars shirt.  It was a Saturday.  The store was crowded.  There were kids in my way.

One kid who was no more than 8 or 9 walked by and made eye contact with my shirt.  “Oh cool,” he said.  “Bigfoot.”

The kid is lucky I couldn’t find a box of “Sugar Smacks” to sugar smack him senselessly about the head for such a blatant disregard of tradition and etiquette.

The whole incident left me bitter.

How bitter?

It happened a week ago, and I’m still irritated enough about it where I still feel compelled to commit it to eternity by publishing a recounting of the incident on the web.

I’m sure the entire incident will eventually be realized as one of those harbingers I mentioned earlier.  As to what’s coming down the road as a result still remains unknown.

Regardless, I want to see your cool t-shirts.  Leave some pics of ’em in the comments below.