So I am going to need to start a few weeks before the day of my arrival, just so you understand the entire story. Well, while Noni and I were visiting Lake Toba, we saw some ridiculous t-shirts that said I heart (with a heart symbol) Lake Toba Full. The "full" is just something that Indonesians like to add to the I love someone message, despite the fact that that I actually have never heard it used in that capacity in English. Anyway, we joked that we should get shirts that said that about each other. Enter the seed for the t-shirt design that you now see to the left of these words. I somehow decided that it would be slightly funny romantic if I arrived in the airport with a t-shirt that said I heart Noni Full. My plan: 1) Make a design; 2) Print a shirt; 3) Wear that shirt to meet Noni in the airport; 4) Make Noni really happy. Well, the first three were accomplished; however, the fourth was an ultimate fail!
You need to remember that I live in a relatively small city area, and my ability to print a shirt like this is limited. I searched and searched for a place to do this and was finally directed to a small shop that was apparently alright. I brought my design and a freaking t-shirt. I thought that there was really nothing that could go wrong, right? Wrong, when I came to pick up the shirt, what was printed was smaller than my original copy and there was paint smeared all of over the front of it. When I complained that the t-shirt looked like absolute shit, the incredibly idiotic Batak man looked at me like, how on earth could you not like my hard work. Well, I will tell you how I do not like it, it looks like I gave a 4 year old child a bucket of paint and they spilled over the design that I brought you! Needless to say, I had to find another place to print this freaking t-shirt.
I received another glowing recommendation from a friend for a shop in the small town of Pandan. Given that I was not successful in the shop from the larger city Sibolga, I entered this new challenge with limited confidence that I would ever get this shirt printed the way that I wanted. As it turns out, the guy that owned the smaller shop was completely capable of doing what I was asking for, and I ended up getting my t-shirt finally printed.
Day of...So I rock my new statement t-shirt while on the plane to Surabaya. I was so excited to have Noni see this thing that I worked so hard to put together. Upon my arrival I get a message from Noni telling me where she is waiting (on the left she says), and as I walk out, she is actually on the right. I am searching for her for a few minutes and get a message that says that she has seen me. As she approaches, she has this look on her face like WTF has my boyfriend done and why is he wearing that shirt. She almost did not want to walk directly toward me, and gave me an alligator arm hug. Her comments on the shirt were less than impressed, and she was so embarrassed that she walked faster than I have ever seen her walk to her car so that she could hide her embarrassing boyfriend and his ridiculous t-shirt. In the car I agreed never to wear it again, and have left it locked up at her house in Surabaya.
At the time, I was pretty hurt that she didn't react the way that I wanted to the t-shirt, but if given the choice to do it all over again, I would definitely rock the shit out of that shirt!!!! Sorry Noni, I love you, and love makes you do ridiculous things. If nothing else, we now have a funny story to share.
0 comments:
Post a Comment