I was in a store the other day browsing for a pocket T-shirt — I don’t buy a T-shirt unless it has a pocket. With me, no pocket, no purchase.
This store had plenty of shirts. Some beauties, too. I’d love to have had a couple of those shirts, but no pocket.
Why so stubborn about a pocket, you ask? (Or maybe you don’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway.)
Wallets, keys and sundry other items can go into pants pockets without any inconvenience, but some things belong in a T-shirt pocket. A comb, for example. If that’s in your pants pocket, you could wound your leg, as well as the comb, when you sit.
Or how about your sunglasses? Sit on those, and it’ll cost you in money and maybe in blood.
I built my unbreakable bond with pocket tees when I took up golf as a kid. I had to find a place for my scorecard and pencil if I was going to walk off the course with any hope of reporting a believable score to anybody, in case they asked. But where was I to store that scorecard and pencil while I was swinging wildly and desperately all over the course and beyond?
Oh, you can put your scorecard into your pants pocket, but before you know it, a 6 has folded into a 9, or, God forbid, a 3 has folded into an 8. My 3s were pretty rare in those days, so I hated to see them scribbled over or leaving the pocket looking like an 8.
The ideal, of course, was a 1 because no matter what you did to your scorecard, you couldn’t wreck that hole-in-one. Not that I ever got one, of course, but I guess I was as much of a dreamer as a scorekeeper as I was as a golfer.
A scorecard is not the only convenience protected by a pocket tee. Say you’re going to the bank drive-through to make a deposit. You’ve assembled all your bills into a pile and topped it with a bank deposit slip. But where do you put it all? Into your pants pocket? No sir! If you do, then you get the neat stack all wrinkled, and you have to unhook your seatbelt to try to extricate that pile to get it into the deposit drawer or canister. If the tellers are expected to get your money securely into your account, they’ll have to have a flatiron in their desk.
No, a pocket tee is, by all means, the answer. Out of the pocket in its original virginal state, and your transaction is complete.
There is one other source of pockets I could use, but they’ve been outlawed from my wardrobe. They’re called cargo pants.
They’re otherwise regular pants that have enormous pockets on the side of each leg. They’re called cargo pants because if you have a small compact sedan, you can make your “car go” into one of these pockets.
My sister, who is older than I am, thinks cargo pants are the worst-looking garment since the miniskirt. She lives in Georgia, and my wife and I visit when we can. If I showed up wearing cargo pants, I’d have to leave them on the front porch and walk around the house in my underwear until I unpacked my suitcase.
So in Georgia, I have no alternative to the pocket tee. and I don’t feel as if there are any options in New York or anyplace else, either.
With that in mind, why do I walk into a department store in Plattsburgh and find T-shirts all over the shelves but not a pocket in the place? For me, a T-shirt has several features that appeal: the colors are a vast kaleidoscope; the dressiness is varied, some shirts even have a collar; and the fabrics can be wondrously soft or practically cardboard-plain or anywhere in between.
At times, when I’m browsing, I swear I can hear a caller whisper an invitation to me to come inspect what’s available. “Oh, Bobby … yoo-hoo … come inspect our herd.”
So I see the rainbow and feel the caress that will smother my torso, whether it’s to be in a North Country August midday or even a Georgia nighttime chill at my sister’s.
In short, I assess the color, the collar, the cooler and the caller. Then, I poke it, peck it, pick it and pack it.
If there’s a pocket.