Monday, October 1, 2007

I have a problem.

As many people have said before, from alcoholics anonymous to WoW Anonymous, the first step of resolving a problem - any problem - is admitting it exists.

Hi, I'm 4400 miles from home, and I have a problem.

Just the one?
Stop it you, this is my blog!

The problem today is t-shirts.

I've got many t-shirts - half olive green, the rest an assortment of non-colours. White, black, grey...but nothing bright, nothing lively.

The problem is how I acquire them.

I can count on the fingers of one hand (that's 4, not 31) the number of times in the last 3 years I've gone into a shop, browsed, searched and sought a t-shirt. Pick them up at an army base? Acquire them from running events? Taunt someone from Microsoft?

These I've done. For a free one, I'd run miles.

Today, it was about 3.1 miles, in 28 minutes.

This was not about raising money for charity - not for me. The thousand and more others might run for charity...but not me.

This wasn't about a chance to chat up pretty girls while running an easy 5k, even if there was quite a few rather cute ones. Even some b-- no, I'm not saying it Helen.

This wasn't even about training for another run - 5k is straightforwards to run. Most people could do it, if they really wanted to.

No, it was the T-Shirt.

I am 4400 miles from home, and I'll do almost anything for a free t-shirt.
----

Nb - the photo's will be here as soon as I can find a really, really small screwdriver. Otherwise we're stuck with IR.

Oh, and I'm somewhat happy that I pulled a curry back from the brink of disaster today. It was even edible.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Martin
One problem? Really, just the one?
You know what the real deal here is, don't you? It's not that you've a T-Shirt fixation, but rather that you can't be bothered to wash the ones that you already have and so are looking for ways to get around this, by obtaining new ones....

Yes, the truth is out there.

Regards,
Luke

Isabelle said...

Am kind of dissappointed in you... most selfish thing ive ever heard you say :( I'm sad... I know noone you know has been hit with Breast Cancer but 1 out of 8 women will be affacted by in in their lifetime and 15-20 % of them will die from it.

You make seem like the run is nothing .. well to some people who lost someone to breast cancer running that run thinking of their loved ones is hard, just like if I were to run for premature babies.

If it dont mean anything dont go, Ill send you a free t-shirt.

Born Today said...

Thinking about it Iz, I do know someone - my godmother suffered it, a long time ago. Indeed, I'd almost forgotten this.

In fact, nearly one percent of all deaths, world wide among women are caused by breast cancer. But in the UK, I know that the last set of stats I saw (2005), breast cancer wasn't the major killer - lung cancer was.

But I speak of neither, since I don't truely know them or their anguish.

The charity organising the run was tangential to the post - I was talking about what I'd do for a "free t-shirt". The run entry fee was still $35, of which most would go towards the charity involved.

To most of the people who ran 5k possibly was a challenge, with real meaning to them.

But I'm not going to claim that.

But money raised for charity will still help, no matter the motivations or the means.

Isabelle said...

Alright you have different motives, fair enough but let me add a little something.

Breast cancer is not caused by anything a women does compared to lung cancer which in alot of case is brought on by smoking.

Also breast cancer is alot harder on women than lung cancer psychologicaly, breast are what identifies a women, dressed in jeans and tshirt without looking at a face how do you know if its a man or women, her breast. Breast to us have a different meaning than to men, we've talked about this before :P

And you say deaths.. well alot more women have cancer and dont die but has equal emotional and physical difficulty on her, 1 in 8 thats more than 10%, alot of women, and yes some men too.