I’ve had this shirt for some time, and had this post mostly written for some time. I’m finally getting around to putting it up.

Seems you can get nearly anything on eBay. Who knew?

I made the mistake of going to eBay (I’ll trust you know the URL) and typing in “paisley shirt.” I then limited it to “men’s” and “XL” (since I am an extra large man). Oh boy. Such wonder. Such hideousness, such joy. Kid in a candy shop, twelve year old with a JCPenny underwear catalog (the portable internet of my day), a straight flush kind of joy! And don’t even think of all the ugly shirts that had no paisley. I could have spent hundreds of dollars here, since it seems like I am not the only one with this problem (I wonder if there is a support group?). “My name is Christopher, and I have an addiction to Ugly Shirts!”

Anyway, I won this shirt:

This shirt looks like someone beat me with a fractal. He’s a series of photos of me taken at The Des Moines Art Center with me wearing the shirt.

I could have had the below shirt as well had I been willing to pay $57.50 in real American dollars. Oh I wish, but nearly $60 bucks for someone’s used clothing? Some people will pay that much for a pair of women’s used panties, but those people are sick and wrong perverts, and my attraction to Ugly Shirts isn’t sexual (at least I don’t think it is).

These photos were taken where I work by a coworker. My girlfriend/photographer/editor wanted me to make this clear.

Even though it’s late Sunday night as I write this, I am going to pretend it’s Saturday, and timestamp it as such. This way I don’t have to feel guilty for being a day late. Not that I would anyway. But read on: Ugly Shirt IX. I don’t know where I got it, don’t know how much I paid, but gog, I do look bad in these photos. I blame the coworker. The girlfriend would have made sure I looked great!

You know, it never really dawned on me that one of my rules for Ugly Shirts is that they must button down. No knit shirts. I only mention this because today I went looking for more shirts and I was tempted by a few knits. I’m not so sure what I have against them, other than I’ve spent the last 3 years divesting myself of plain knit shirts. Last thing I need to do it replace them with ugly knit ones. I did find two today, so I am still on track for one a week. I will fail it I have too many weeks go by without a purchase. No worries if that happens, I’ll just go back to all the posts where I mention wanting to post one a week for a year, and change any such reference to six months.

I have at least a two month backlog of shirts and a month or so of actual photos of them. I should be able to stay ahead of the curve.

I feel bad for people who don’t figure out things like what they want to do when they grow up until it’s almost too late. Take me for example, I was into my mid 30’s before I ever realized I had an attraction to Ugly Shirts. You would have thought something like this would have come along much earlier in life. Me sneaking down to my local bowling alley to admire the bowling shirts, or getting caught in the dressing room with six Hawaiian shirts (when the most they allowed was five), or even stealing a golf shirt or two from the local Sears store. But sadly, I didn’t find this pleasure, until I was in the midst of my midlife crisis. Ok, seriously, I haven’t had my midlife crisis yet. And no matter what this paragraph makes it sound like, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.

When I do have my midlife crisis, I do hope it involves shirts though. That would be so original!

Once again my lovely and talented photographer managed to find a site to compliment my shirt perfectly. How she scouts these locations I’ll never know. Sometimes I nearly become invisible, blending in with chameleon like powers!

These photos were taken last Saturday. And as I am sure you have noticed by now, they didn’t make it up on time for Ugly Shirt Saturday™. I’ll try harder next time! To make up for the lack of a timely post I am posting at least three times today!

We went to IHOP for breakfast, but there were thousands of screaming children and a wait of 30 minutes. Feeling clausterphobic and hungry, we decided to go where the senior citezens hang out, Village Inn! I just signed up for their eclub, so if you too want exciting coupons and exclusive information on pies, you should follow that link.

This shirt made it onto this site only by the graces of a helpful girlfriend who sewed a button back on for me. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “What, are you too dumb to know how to hire a seamstress to do this for you?” Well, to this I say, no, I am just too lazy. And she says she likes to do things for me (the girlfriend says that, not the seamstress, I don’t know any seamstresses). But I’ve had this shirt for some time and never managed to actually wear it due to the button issue. My girlfriend also happens to be my photographer, and again, I know what you are thinking, “Don’t you know it’s dumb to date someone you work with?” Well, believe it or not, we don’t do this professionally, and I don’t pay her. Well, not for photography anyway. Ha!

I know in the second photo I look like I am holding my hands out for the handcuffs, but I was trying to show how well I was matching the furniture. I called this an “action shot!” Sometimes I wonder what the hell people think when they see me getting my photo taken over and over again, like it’s some kind of special occasion. Yay, breakfast at Village Inn! Try to hold back the excitement.

Well, as always, feel free to leave comments.

The best part of these photos is the fact that the shirt matches the booth and the painting behind me. These were taken at the Perkins in Ames on 3-16-08. We tend to go to Perkins a bit too much, but the girlfriend likes breakfast and I have an untreated crane game addiction. This time of year I can win her bunnies, so it’s a triple win!

This shirt is nearly really very unique (so I guess it’s just unique, sure wish it was a one of a kind though) in that it doesn’t have a collar. I have a couple shirts sans-collar, but this is the only Ugly Shirt I have lacking one. This shirt, like many of my first Ugly Shirts, is starting to show its age. I don’t think I will obsess on trying to find a replacement for it. Any other shirt will do.

So I bid $11.01 on a shirt today on eBay. This violates one of my tenets of these shirts in that I will be paying more than $4 for it, but it is a paisley that I think will be worth the cost. I probably won’t get it, since I won’t bid any higher, and I know someone reading this will outbid me out of spite. I can only rest comfortably in the knowledge that paisley karma will rule out in the end. You may spite me, but look at the shirt you will be getting:

Once, I saw the coolest Ugly Shirt. This old blind guy was getting it. Seriously. You would have had to be blind (or me) to want this shirt. He had his wife along, and I was hoping more reasonable minds would prevail, but to no avail. I didn’t get the shirt. I can’t remember much about it, other than it was brown. I am pretty sure I would get the shirt above either, but this way, I can at least have a picture to remind me of what I could have had (if some blind guy doesn’t outbid me on eBay too).

So I am starting to worry about if I will be able to make it 52 weeks. This seemed doable when I started, but the land of hideous shirts is going through a global warning. They are getting harder to find. I had a couple years to collect what I currently have. Now I have like 30 weeks or so to find another 22 shirts! We’ll see. I may have to start using Photoshop. Or I may have to start violating rules. Some of the shirts that I like, and pay like $4 for, I can find for more money than I have ever spent on any single item of clothing. $124 for a shirt? Same world, different planets.