Old Pink Cotton, Full of Dirt and Pride

I looked down at my shirt. Had I fallen on my face in some mud? I didn’t recall that. Had someone vomited on me? I didn’t recall that either. And yet, somehow, my pink cotton shirt was impressively soiled.

A beautiful day dawned this morning. It seemed like it would be a normal shirt sort of day. The sort of day that ends by tossing the shirt off into the laundry hamper and muttering, It is practically still clean. It was a beautiful day, but the shirt had some work to do.

The first half of the day was not very shirt-noteworthy. The kids and I went grocery shopping. The shirt acquired a few crumbs from snacking in the van, and then a slight scuff from a grocery cart handle abruptly stopping at my chest—the boy is a bit of a race-cart driver at times. Just one little mark, I shrugged.

We went home. The tot got bit by fire ants. Dirty tears mingled with the race-cart scuff. It will dry, I shrugged. I blasted the ants off the porch steps with the hose, and hard water droplets danced in perfect formation, each droplet dancer cascading through the wide open air, until it landed with a plop onto my shirt. It will dry, I shrugged at the hard water spots collecting there.

Then the shirt had a new, unique opportunity. I had to haul some mulch from one end of the property to the next, and as it turns out our wheelbarrow is the extreme opposite of my son’s race-cart: it does not move at all. I hauled those bags of mulch on my hips like they were my mulch children, leaving a bit of a reddish discoloration against the pink cotton shirt, along with a chemical coated cedar smell. I might have shrugged about that too, but I didn’t notice because my mulch children were breaking me down, much like real children do.

I hobbled back into the house with my undoubtedly misaligned hips, along with the scuff, the tears, the droplet dancers, and the cedar smell. From there the shirt was honored to collect the foaming saliva from Big Dog’s mouth while he tried to eat the neighbor’s dog on his walk. The shirt also gathered a bit of tomato paste from dinner prep, to show off its skills in the kitchen. But things really didn’t start to amp up for the shirt until after dinner.

Family game night is a thing in this house, and it is a beautiful thing. A five-year-old practices arithmetic while playing Monopoly. A tot confirms her knowledge of colors while playing Candy Land. My husband has the opportunity to take off the rubber bands holding the game boxes together and shoot them at my ass. Everyone is happy…normally.

I sat through Monopoly while an exhausted but in denial tot screamed about everything within a foot of my ear. The boy repeatedly tossed the dice so that it knocked out half of the assembled game board, rolled through the snacks, and careened down to the rug. This was frustrating to most parties…but not to good old pink cotton shirt. Spilled drinks went sloshing off the table but were rescued from hitting the ground by the shirt. Then, old pink cotton got to comfort the wailing tot once more, by way of collecting smeared chocolate off of her face.

Then came the toothpaste smears from a tot’s toothbrush, and the mysteriously sticky hands of the boy. The soap from the dishes; a splash of warm tea; a lick from an Old Man Dog—it was all accepted graciously by the pink cotton shirt.

This evening I tossed the shirt off and stood looking in the mirror at my tan lines a moment, before examining the shirt’s tan lines. A brand logo on a shirt inspires pride in the same way dirt on a shirt ought to. Hard work and dirt are always honorable.

I tossed it into the laundry hamper, wondering if there was any chance it would come out of the wash stain free. I doubt it.

The shirt would have it no other way.