Two circles sit on the shirt, and only one of them is real. At the upper left, a dashed outline marks where a ball used to be. At the lower right, a solid white ball rests on a flat ledge. Between them, a curved ramp descends. Above it all, in white capitals: I HAD POTENTIAL.…
The shirt does not say shy. It does not say quiet or reserved or please give me a moment. It says NOT FRIENDLY in the flat, capitalized voice of a hazard placard, and then it says DO NOT TOUCH, and between those two commands sits a yellow caution triangle with a hand inside it, crossed…
The first thing I notice is the cat. Not the word Daddy, which sits below it in the same light lettering, and not the dark ground that holds everything together. The cat is a silhouette, centered, and it is flanked. On its left, a C. On its right, a T. The two letters stand at…
The shirt reads GOT TOO SILLY in plain capitals across the top. Below the words, a white goose-like bird stands in an orange prison uniform, holding a black mugshot board. The bird’s expression is not contrite. It is the flat, forward-facing stare of someone who has been processed and is now waiting for the next…
The shirt does not show a garden. It shows four root vegetables — carrot, radish, beet, onion — arranged around a sentence, each one smiling, each one with its root drawn down into visible soil. The words run around them: LET’S ROOT FOR EACH OTHER AND WATCH EACH OTHER GROW. What interests me is not…
Opening: a correction before the first move The title of this essay promises a chess law for sofa buying. The sources do not support one. Triangulation is a real endgame tactic, and the Maryland consumer-furniture guidance is real consumer guidance, but nothing in either says that chess strategy governs retail negotiation. So I am going…