Tank Top Currency

For the first part of the summer of 2003 I interned with a movie promotions agency in Boston. We sent out passes and occasionally put on promotional events where we got rid of our mountains upon mountains of movie swag. During that summer, one of the hotly anticipated movies was Legally Blonde 2: Red White and Blonde. The office was littered with cases of tank tops, miniature nail files, fans and other relatively useless bright pink items.

The good news was that the movie came out July 2nd, just two weeks after the Boston Gay Pride Parade. In a genius move, myself and some of the other interns were dispatched to the Boston Gay Pride Parade to promote the movie. We would set up a small booth on the Commons and people stopped by to browse and grab things they wanted.

It was very hot, so many people weren't wearing even wearing shirts, nonetheless our shirts were going over very well. Everyone needed to have one. The good news was we had several dozen large boxes of them at our table. There was no way we would ever run out, I mean, how many people at a gay pride parade would want a Legally Blonde shirt?

As more and more people reached the Boston Common where we were stationed, the shirt stash began to dwindle and the demand for them became greater. It was like the end of It's a Wonderful Life, when the townspeople crowd the bank asking for their money. A few of us grabbed what we could and went out amongst the people, handing them out to anyone who wanted them. In short order, we were running down to the last of our supply.

A short overly tanned man without a shirt on asked for the shirt that I was wearing and the crowd cheered. Immediately I turned red, but still gave him the shirt. I think the fact that I was wearing a t-shirt that said "Hulk" underneath didn't do me any favors with that crowd.

Thankfully I had put one away for myself before the event, or I wouldn't have been able to take this lovely picture yesterday after coming across the shirt amongst my regular undershirts.