In praise of T-shirts

While brunching at Stella's on the weekend the young couple at the table beside me caught my attention. "We noticed you're wearing a Hidden Cameras shirt (pictured above) -- and we're wondering if you could tell us where we can go for some good live music." Turned out they'd just made a permanent move from Toronto to teach at the local university. They had stunned looks on their faces. Obviously suffering from a bit of culture shock -- the sloooow pace of life here, the smallness of everything compared to the big city. And it was with some relief that they found out I was also from Toronto and could relate to everything they were going through. A bond formed between strangers -- all because of a T-shirt.

Brought me back to the time a month ago when I was walking down the street and an older woman, minding some kind of bizarre sidewalk sale in front of a crazy-coloured house, stopped me to comment on the New York Subway T-shirt I was wearing (also pictured above). She said it reminded her of home -- she'd been transplanted from Brooklyn many years ago. I coulda sworn she was getting all teary-eyed over it.

I bet even if Superman didn't have his powers, he'd still walk around with that big S stuck on his chest, hoping one day some other poor, lonely soul from Krypton would come up to him and say, "Hey, me too."