The energy in the auditorium was already electric. Every single act in the middle school variety show received thunderous applause, a standing ovation. It was the last day of school and the audience was determined to love everything. Then the next act brought out a T-shirt gun.

I don’t know why they call it a gun. It really should be called a cannon. This thing doesn’t fire; it launches. And when the middle school got a glimpse of this thing that launches T-shirts, the whole place went bananas.

They screamed like young women watching Elvis Presley play electric guitar whilst swiveling his hips. They screamed like the Beatles had just landed at JFK. They screamed like their lives would never be the same.

We all own many t-shirts. We like some, accept others. A few, I suppose, we love. Yet, I’m willing to bet someone else’s life on the fact that no one has ever seen a t-shirt for sale and screamed. But today—they screamed. They screamed for something less than a t-shirt. Today they screamed for the possibility of a t-shirt.

This is confusing because I own so many t-shirts that if I never bought another t-shirt and lived to be 200 years old, I would still have too many t-shirts. The last thing most people on this planet need is another t-shirt.

And yet—if you put a t-shirt in a cannon…

When the t-shirt’s shot out of a cannon… people jumped atop wheelchairs (still occupied by a child), people clotheslined a priest, people boxed out elderly women to have a better chance at the prize that was a t-shirt.

History remembers the time when one man’s job was to move t-shirts. He looked at the inventory—boxes and boxes of sad, oversized, corporate logo-covered shirts nobody asked for, nobody wanted. Last year they gave the t-shirts away at a booth. No one took one. Well, one guy took one but later his wife made him give it back.

He spent a year planning so that would never happen again. He came up with a new plan. A bold plan. A revolutionary plan. This year, he thought, t-shirts will not be free. This year, t-shirts will be a thing you can win!

I mean, what if these t-shirts could fly?

Let us, for a moment, return and consider the guy holding the cannon. He turned left—the auditorium SCREAMED! He turned right—the auditorium SCREAMED LOUDER! Then, like Caesar, he chose their fate. And when he finally launched that t-shirt into the crowd— a crowd already

screaming at a ten—they screamed at eleven. Every eyeball in the house was trained on this man. This guy holding a cannon was, for one brief moment, Freddie Mercury at Live Aid. He was, for that moment, a god.

But was he a god, really? I mean, he was just a middle school science teacher. But what was it like to taste that kind of power? Just a taste would make most men want more.

I would not be surprised if he brought a cannon home. One night, he pulled it out in the bedroom—just to see. His poor wife, I assume, did not scream. She ducked, fell backward off the bed. Not the reaction he was hoping for. He tried to explain. “I would never shoot it at you,” he said. “I’d shoot it up—off the ceiling. It would be exciting.” She raised her voice: “Put. It. Away.”

Which brings us back to that auditorium full of middle schoolers. The kids screamed before they knew there was the t-shirt gun. Then the kids saw the t-shirt gun. They screamed louder, like their summers depended on it. Maybe the kids really like t-shirts? Maybe they really like guns? Or cannons? Or maybe kids today still want to reach for something with a cotton/polyester blend to remind them that they are very much a part of this world?