Field Day Shirt Show

 EVERY year! What on earth is wrong with me? Wait. Don't answer that. I'm sensitive.

So as Field Day approached, I racked my brain to think of a t-shirt logo that encompasses Room 24's enigmatic spirit. Cherub H really loved carrots, zealously consuming them EVERY day. We could be Mosiman's Crazy Carrots. No-oo-oo. The Pusheen Cat craze swept through the room, occupying all of our spare coloring time. How about Mosiman's Perky Pusheens? No...it sounds naughty. We finally circled back to our real-time, all-out war with the Acme Book Company. "We made a meme!" Cherub E shouted, spotting the monkey and unicorn emblazoned on his t-shirt. Finally...we were The Mosiman Memes!

You'd think the hard part would be meticulously fabric painting the figures on each shirt but NO-OO-OO...the HARD part is trying not to care as they are DESECRATED by the unique artistic vision of, let's be real here...nine & ten-year-old boys. For three days, I repeat my mantra, "It's your shirt...of course you can decorate your meme monkey as a tribute to Heath Ledger's Joker."  "It's your shirt, darling...I agree that buck-teeth on a monkey would look adorable!" "Why bother to color the horn of your unicorn when you can depict a puddle of blood dripping from your unicorn's muzzle...it is, after all, YOUR shirt!" And then there were some for which I had absolutely NO words.

"Why do you do this again?" my friend George laughed as he inspected the pile of colorful shirts. He held up one. "The green monkey is my favorite, by the way." I rested my head down on my arms. "I like to give the students ownership of their shirts," I mumbled. "Well...in that case, they turned out great," George assured me, "There is NO mistaking that kids created these." Lifting my head, I rallied to color my own shirt...leaving it to dry just in time for Field Day. "Mrs. Mosiman! I love your shirt!" my little darlings squealed when they spotted me wearing our team uniform the following morning. "I love ALL of our shirts," I smiled, "They each reflect our individual personalities." I glanced at the hemorrhaging unicorn and suppressed a shiver. I'm not sure I want to know what that design reflects about its owner.