Monday, 18 November 2013

Day 322



Another parcel fell out of my Post Tube. Nothing unusual about it; brown, crumpled packaging, sealed with a single line of brown tape, smothered in all the usual international postage ephemera that I'm sure meant something to someone.
No clothing logos or branding though. That was odd. No obvious indication which retailer had sent it...

No matter, the answer will lie with the tees, I reasoned. I tore open the bag and watched both garments tumble out onto the desk.
Hmmm.
Both were second hand. Both were unrelated in design. Both were unaccompanied by any form of letter or communication. Both were all alone inside that parcel. Both were anonymous.

Hold on. There actually is something tucked between them. A small slip of paper. I studied it closely. It was a page torn from the top of a Days Inn branded notepad, with my postal address handwritten on it. How peculiar. At the foot of the page was a phone number for the hotel. It was written in Spanish.
"Spanish?!" I protested, turning the empty package upright. "But the return address is for South Dakota, USA".
This was becoming quite the mystery.
I squinted at the Customs label for further clues.
Declaration : two cotton T-shirts. Present and correct.
Sender : Perry K.

Ah ha! A name. An actual human name. A name I could probably filter out through my email search tool and find some previous communication between us about my THREEHUNDREDANDSIXTEEFIVE T-shirt challenge.

0 results.

Hmmmm again.
If I'd never emailed Perry K before, how the heck had he gotten hold of my address to donate some T-shirts?
OK, maybe Perry K meant something to South Dakota's online residents directory?

0 results.

OK, maybe another K? Unless Perry was some kind of clairvoyant T-shirt posting hermit, he would have other K's I could find. Wife. Brother. Someone.

1 results - Penny K.

Penny K of South Dakota!

Is that you, far far away in South Dakota? Did you just send me two T-shirts? Is the one I'm wearing for Day 322 bearing an illustrative flourish around the text 'Captive Free' one of them? Were you involved with the Youth Encounter and their Captive Free project? Did you know a whole bunch of people signed the back of this T-shirt before you sent it to me? Or possibly after you sent it to me? Did you know you're listed in the South Dakota online residents directory? Did you know that your 'n's look deceptively like 'r's at a glance?
Did you know I ask a lot of questions Penny?
Did you know that???

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THREEHUNDREDANDSIXTEEFIVE Project

Hi, I’m Andi Best and I’m a regular guy, rising to an irregular challenge.

People tell me I have a lot of T-shirts. These people are not wrong, it’s true, I do.

But one person went as far as to tell me I have so many T-shirts, I could probably wear a different one every day. This is obviously not true, but it got me thinking - what if I could wear a different T-shirt every day? What if I never wore the same T-shirt twice for an entire year?

Challenge accepted

I have created project THREEHUNDREDANDSIXTEEFIVE which, beginning January 1st 2013, will track my pro gress sourcing and wearing a different T-shirt every day for the next 365 days – and I’m going to need your help to do it…

TAKE PART HERE