On Tour With the Kid: Are you Comfortable Looking in the Mirror?

Growing up, my mother used the phrase “ideologically unsound”. The way she lived her life was very deliberate. She came of age in the 70s and had an inherent belief that people could come together for a common cause, but it also mattered what you did individually.

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Where you spend your money makes a difference. Based on this being part of my upbringing, I try my hardest to be deliberate about where I spend my money. I make an effort to buy from small retailers and to buy things that are made in Australia, but it’s not easy. The other thing you need to look out for now is scams. Is it a real site, is it well-made, or just a copy of something popular at the moment? I try to always pay on PayPal to give you some protection, but it doesn’t always help. I try not to buy things that look like an “extreme bargain” because I have visions of them being put together by political prisoners in a windowless room, and I don’t mind paying a little bit more, just for the peace of mind.

This background brings me to my latest purchase. I have seen these T-shirts on Facebook a lot. The body of it is a band, in this case, The Ramones. Right off the bat, it is not something I’d typically buy because, just on the face of it, I would like to think that if you are using an artist’s imagery, the band or their representatives are getting the money for that item. There is no way to check if that was the case, but common sense would say no. The rest of the shirt was cut off at the shoulder, and bat wing sleeves were added to the shirt in a paisley fabric.

Part of the reason I decided to buy it was that one of my big things at the moment is repurposing clothes rather than them ending up in landfill, and I have lots of T-shirts I love and that don’t fit anymore. I’m not a great seamstress, but I thought this looked pretty simple and might give me a base to work with. It also wasn’t cheap.

By the time I’d paid the exchange rate and shipping, it was $86. More than I’d normally pay, but I figured it would be worthwhile if it helped me do something with these other shirts. It was from an American site in USD, and the nice blonde American girl said they were all handmade, which, to be honest, I took with a grain of salt.

Cut to the shirt arriving. I kid you not, the image was reversed. I was trying to work out how the hell that even happens. Let’s face it, it doesn’t happen if each piece is handmade by an American business that knows the band name is not spelled SENOMAR and can spot a letter facing the wrong way. That said, the shirt was super comfortable. I reached out to the company and PayPal, but I did think to myself, this is your punishment for not listening to your mother.

When I put it on and looked in the mirror, I laughed because it obviously reads the right way in the mirror. I also laughed because it was comfortable and looked fine to me, so what do I care how it looks to everyone else?

Weirdly, it made me think about my mum again and the federal election. Politics was always a big thing in our house. When deciding who to vote for, it wasn’t solely based on what was best for me and my family. It was based on who would make things the best for as many families as possible. I want things to be better for families that don’t look like mine,

don’t act like mine. Families that didn’t have the opportunities my family had been lucky enough to have.

I guess I want to come home after casting my vote and make sure I’m comfortable looking in the mirror.