After a lot of window shopping I eventually ordered this shirt.
It came off of the Penny Arcade online store. There was no special occasion for buying it, I really liked it and went for it. By this time, I owned a credit card and I had no problem acquiring things from the Internet. Before, buying things online was a bit of a challenge but now it's more of an addiction.
One of the reasons I was pining over this shirt was because it matches my rubric for an excellent shirt: black, high contrast, obscure reference, video game related, and not from a normal retailer. All the ink on it is well screened and has held up well for several years. If they decided to make more shirts in this line or with this theme I would probably pick them up.
The front says "Your Mom is a Classy Lady!" in bright, easy to read yellow. It has an exclamation mark so that you know I really mean it! Right in the middle is a white silhouette of a Lancer Assault Rifle, the main weapon from the game Gears of War. The gun has a 5 color rainbow going from stock to barrel above it. The only thing on the reverse of the shirt is the Penny Arcade logo and their website. So, let me explain what this means, because it seems like a non sequitur at face value. It is referencing a 3 panel comic wherein the characters set the video game Gears of War to an E for everyone maturity setting. On this setting the characters bleed rainbows and say mean spirited -yet clean- one liners like this.
I like having this on when I meet other gamers. Hopefully they will get the reference or at least recognize the Lancer. Bobby and I spent way too much time playing though Gears of War 1 & 2 for me to not have some sort of merchandise or software from it. The reference is not directly from the game, that makes it kinda random and hard to explain. On the other hand it makes for a good conversation starter, they get the Gears of War reference but not the webcomic or vise versa and I get to explain it to them.
The worst kind of situation with this shirt is when I'm wearing it for more than a day and forget about it. I'll inevitably show up at someone else's house and meet their parents. It dawns on me just as I am about to talk but of course they've already noticed and called me on it. HAHAH, the most awkward laugh ever and me folding my arms across my chest in one hasty motion. Explaining this to someones parents is nearly impossible even if you show them the specific webcomic directly. At that point I either brush it off as a compliment or work on the best distraction/topic change I can muster in a mater of moments.
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