Peer Pressure

Saturday, as I was setting up for the firearm’s bourse I was selling my collection at, I saw a tee shirt manufacturer setting up.

Are you like me and like to wear bizarre tee shirts?  Some of my favorites through the years has been one from Hawaii with a shark picking his teeth and saying, “Let’s do lunch!”  I loved that shirt.  I have dozens of such shirts which make me smile and often put a chuckle on the lips of others.

So, I looked through the hundreds of designs this guy had and found a shirt I really liked: a copy of the “Intel Inside” logo from the front of almost all PCs only this one read, “Jesus Inside”.

Sunday I wore this new addition to my wardrobe to the bourse.  And the reactions were really surprising!

Lots of hateful stares, which I found quite interesting as most of those came from people around my age.  A few snickers, some finger pointing – lots easier to take than ugly looks.

One man told me he liked my shirt, the maker commented he had never seen someone actually wear it!  But, he liked it.

Then the ultimate: a young man, maybe 17 with a spiked Mohawk and wearing a tee shirt with a huge skull on it.  Yeah, something beyond emo-reality.  He stood there for a while and finally said, “I like your shirt, in fact I would like to have one of those.” 

I gave him a surprised look, pointed to where he could find one and off he trotted.

I hope he is a Christian if he wears that shirt and if so, I am happy to see interest in not being embarrassed to say you are a Christian by Dutch youth (in this case).

Being the nerd and outcast throughout my entire youth, I never was affected by peer pressure.  You have to have peers first off – something I never suffered from.  Because of this I have no problem wearing shirts that say, “Which one of the commandants do you not understand?” or another of my favorites, “Don’t make me come down there! … God”.

As for this young man?  Something clicked in his mind at that moment.  And I was very please to see him helping several older men whom had gotten tangled up in a table with the barrels of their long guns.  In fact he was almost like a boy scout going around helping people Sunday afternoon, wearing his new shirt.

Cool.