For Day 112 of my THREEHUNDREDANDSIXTEEFIVE challenge, I am wearing a relic. This T-shirt is ancient; it dates back to a time when my Mum still purchased my clothes from a catalogue cult she was part of.
It was the first Quiksilver T-shirt I ever owned and it has really been put through its paces over the years. The screen-printed transfer now resembles an oil painting for all its cracks; each one is a very small chapter in the garment's complete history. For instance, several of the cracks probably came from the time I wore it during a weekend in Glastonbury…
One particularly sunny morning, my friend Emma and I decided to have breakfast at a little café along one of Glastonbury’s high streets. Acquiring a nook amidst its outdoor seating, we were served plates of toasty full English goodness.
Towards the end of the meal I became rather bemused, as Emma, suddenly ascended upward, without leaving her chair.
"That’s odd", I thought.
Then my breakfast levitated off the table too, and exploded in a mass of mashed beans and spilt orange juice all over the ground – the ground at which my left cheek was now pressed.
The chair that I was sat on merely a few moments ago now lay on its side in front of me with its back legs contorted into a metallic slalom.
"What the hell is going on here!?", I asked inwardly as I surveyed the scene of carnage unfolding before me.
I looked up to Emma who was looking down at me. She was perched on the edge of her chair, clutching her cup of tea, with our table now absent from her lap and her eyes wide with terror. The remnants of my meal were strewn in tatters all around me and my face was still against the ground.
I tried to stand, but found my legs were stuck; clamped hard under something, so flailing my arms was all the movement I could muster.
Eventually, the old aged pensioner who had recently joined us composed herself enough to switch her mobility scooter into reverse and backed it off of me, freeing my legs from under it. It transpired that she had lost control of the vehicle whilst taking a bend in the road and ploughed straight into the café at full speed, totally wiping out me and my breakfast. She somehow managed to miss all the other tables!
The old lady, though obviously rattled, then readjusted her course and shoved off up the street. She just carried on as if nothing had happened - she didn't even look back!
As soon as she was out of earshot, the remaining patrons burst into hysterics and I continued my day in a breakfast flavoured T-shirt. I like to think that baked bean sauce and toast crumbs are still engrained into those transfer cracks even today...
