Tim, taking the plunge

You asked for it, now it's here: the entirely unauthorized, bordering on blasphemous Pimp Shirt Page. (Don't ask, it's a college thing).

I can't claim to have even embodied the essence of that sacred icon known as the Pimp Shirt with this web page. Indeed, having never served on the Pimp Shirt High Council, I feel inadequate to describe what exactly the Pimp Shirt is. All I can do is say that it does exists. And I was a part of it. Then again, that's all any of us can say.

Okay, so I'm full of it. I could tell you everything about the Pimp Shirt, including who wore it when and what magnitude of "action" they attained that night. I could offer you every detail of the infamous washing ceremony, including how, unbeknownst to the general public, it was Whitaker who removed the Pimp Shirt from it's laundry room tomb and hid it in the fridge. But I won't say anything about it. I'm a college student and simply don't have the time.

All I can offer is a few pictures to show you how exactly the Pimp Shirt made us feel and to what extent we actually maintained our sanity back in Merrill Hall during that long, dark winter (well, it wasn't really that dark) of 1995-96. Someday, maybe I'll explain. But until then, you'll pretty much have to make your own judgments.

Alright, well, maybe just a little background. The Pimp Shirt, which in communal spirit we shared amongst the inhabitants of the Merrill 1100 floor (there was even a calendar where you could sign up), eventually started to smell. Someone proposed we wash it, but we knew this would displease the Pimp Spirit that inhabited the shirt and we were afraid he might leave.

So someone suggested that we solve this problem by temporarily transferring the Spirit into a host shirt, while we washed the Pimp Shirt. Of course, this plan called for a lot of ritualistic chanting and dancing and in the laundry room. All without shirts of course, to symbolize that shirts everywhere were mourning the Pimp Shirt's pain. Finally, after the ritual for restoring the Pimp Spirit back to the Pimp Shirt, the plan required that we burn the temporary host shirt outside in the freezing cold while we were, of course, shirtless. And it was very important that there was a lot of urgent running and more dancing.

These pictures are a testament to the fact that the plan worked, and that the Pimp Shirt was safely restored to its original glory. The fact that there were lots of jaw-dropped, shocked-looking people both in the laundry room and at the barbeque pit where the burning took place, is only a greater testament to the awe that people hold for the Pimp Shirt.