Sunday Newscape Magazine

Women Want Me. Fish Fear Me: That was on a T-shirt I gave my dad as a gift years ago. Underneath the words was a picture of a happy-looking man in a floppy fishing hat, holding up a large fish and surrounded by smiling buxom beauties in bikinis who appeared to be having a grand old time. That shirt has become his favorite. It’s been washed so many times (at my mother’s insistence) that it’s now about half-shirt and half-hole. In fact, the fish has pretty much disappeared except for a section of tail fin and an alarmed-looking eye.

And the shirt’s laughing ladies have aged rather dramatically, their buxom parts now stretched out and saggy. Sadly, it’s kind of like what happens in real life.

If you stopped by my father’s house unexpectedly, there’s about a 98-percent chance he would come to the door wearing that shirt. If you happened to visit during one of those two-percent times when the shirt had been wrestled off my dad’s body so that it could be washed, he’d greet you wearing his backup T-shirt that proudly proclaims “I’m In No Shape To Exercise.” The backup shirt only has a few holes and a smattering of stains, but it does the job in a pinch.

The Women-Want-Me, Fish-Fear-Me shirt spends a great deal of its time pressed up against my dad’s beloved easy chair, where it catches crumbs falling from his mouth, sops up liquids that drip from his drinks and provides a comforting (if airy) covering when he naps.

All of the other gifts I’ve given him - ties, bottles of Old Spice, power tools, business books – were no doubt appreciated for the thought. But nothing has been as well-used, and well-loved, as that shirt.

My kids get a big kick out of the shirt, especially the part about women wanting my dad. This makes them roll around on the floor laughing. And the large hole that allows a certain part of his chest to show through leaves them shrieking.

“Oooo…Grandpa’s got man-boobs!”

My mom - a practical woman who does not hold on to clothing that is riddled with holes - once foolishly tried to throw the shirt away. It was actually in the trash can on garbage day, lying there crumpled amidst the coffee grounds, spent cleaning rags and used tissues, when my dad found it and yanked it out in a rage.

“Woman, how can you even think about throwing this shirt away?!” he yelled, cradling the beloved bit of apparel with a crazed look in his eye.

And so the shirt survived. My dad will probably want to be buried in it someday. By then, though, I don’t know if I’ll be able to part with it.

© Jackie Papandrew, All Rights Reserved