Look Back and Laugh

I saw this shirt, albeit with white lettering on green cotton, in front of a Lakewood, WA tavern known as the Green Pup.

I laughed at first at a man so silly and frivolous. His sunglasses were tinted purple like Bono's, and his jeans were so tight as to constrict his movements to a penguin-like walk.

After he passed, though, I had a moment to reflect. His shirt bore an odd familiarity, and I thought I'd caught faint traces of a familiar scent as he passed by. "Red Jeans" by Gianni Versace. Portia! The lying minx had gotten her vixen together behind my back, and with a lowlife metrosexual to boot. My eyes welled up with tears. My mind raced. I felt my pulse reach the Target Heart Rate Zone for cardiovascular exercise. The cheating bitch!

I should have known trouble was coming the day she bought that curious shirt. But how could I have? Worn by her, it was a mere passing joke, punctuated by a painful reminder that its humor was a cheap crackerjack, a fleeting moment's novelty that would soon pass. "Go ahead and laugh / This is [merely] your girlfriend's shirt [and this joke will soon wear thin]." If only I'd known that such malice had been nurtured in Portia's heart. The very premeditation of the act made it the most sick. So I endeavored to hurt her in kind.