light vessel automatic

When I came to Japan, my sister asked me to get her a t-shirt with some crazy, Japanese English slogans on it. The problem, though, is that there’s a big difference between what’s funny when you see it on someone’s shirt in the street, and what is actually funny enough to be worth getting for someone, and so I haven’t been able to find a t-shirt quite good enough. Until now! Last time I went to the mainland, I finally found the t-shirt I’ve been looking for. It says, in big bold silver letters:

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THERE’S SOMETHING ON MY MIND?

And then, to clarify things, in small, black cursive writing, partly overlaying the main question:

I remember before I was born, wounded up like a fur ball in the highly overrated fetal position, luckily I’m not claustrophobic, but on rainy days I still feel a tightness in my left shoulder. So now that my stepmother’s pregnant, I understand what the baby’s going through, and I’m not jealous at all, really, not at all.

Which should also lay to rest the idea that these t-shirts are made by people who don’t speak English. Whoever wrote that knew exactly what they were saying.

Of all the Japanese-English t-shirts I’ve seen, my favourite said ‘I have fallen, and I can’t get up.‘ The best one I’ve ever heard of was seen by another JET teacher on a boy of about twelve, walking with his family in a garden in Kyoto. It said ‘Ten Inch Shit.‘

Simple, beautiful, profound.

Image: either Japanese tv, or a photo I took in a dream. I don’t remember any more.