Dude, is that polyester? That's not cool.

Many of you know my feelings about Olympia. Though Becca, one of my favorite people, is there, the town itself drives me a little nuts. It’s been called the self-righteousness capital of the country and I wouldn’t disagree. I can do a great Olympia imitation using only the phrase, "That is so fucked up!"

The best example I can give is when I was driving a bunch of Olympians around at Yo-Yo-A-Go-Go one year, and a debate began raging as to whether or not a Dutch punk band* covering a political Hungarian folk song was culturally imperialist. "They’re not Hungarian. That is so fucked up!"

Upon entering the Oly Food Co-op on this visit, I saw a strange sign. It read, "Need a shirt to wear while you’re in the store? Just ask a staff person. We have some nice clean button downs in the back. Thank you from the Co-op Staff" What?

I immediately envisioned a sweat-stained and patchoulied Food Co-op shirt, stinking from the last hippie who wore it, possibly even still damp, and sealed in a plastic bag. I couldn’t help it even though the sign specifically said the customer shirts were clean. I asked Becca, who works there, what was up. Evidently it was a big problem for them. The women in the co-op felt like it was a gender issue because it was always guys who came in with no shirts and lame excuses.** The co-op men met and obtained plain work shirts to provide for in-store use.

I was almost speechless but not quite. Another Olympian and I started brainstorming better ideas for shirts than the current ones:

"How about one that says, ‘I didn’t wear a shirt to the Olympia Food Co-op’ on the front and ‘Need a backrub, Sister?’ on the back?

"A full McDonald’s uniform!"

"A low-cut, best-dressed-breast shirt that laces up the sides."

"A ‘Try burning this one, Asshole!’ American flag shirt!"***

(And since my LJ friends are a smart bunch, I think you all should offer up other suggestions for shirts that I will then forward to my Oly Food Co-op friends.)

After much mocking over the course of many hours, including my accusations of co-dependency and enabling bad hippie male behavior, an exasperated Co-op worker said to me, "Well, what do you do when shirtless guys come into your shop?"

I loved this question because it implies that there’s really a problem. Like their store is the only grocery store in the country that requires shirts for shopping. My Oly friend knew exactly what I was going to say. At the same time we yelled, "Tell ‘em, ‘get the fuck out of the store!’"



*The Ex and Tom Cora "Scrabbling at the Lock": one of my favorite albums.

**My favorite lame hippie dude argument. "That policy seems really regressive. I thought this place was supposed to be progressive."

*** Actually that was suggested by Steve a few days later but I didn’t want to ruin the flow of the story.