As Heather mentioned yesterday, Annie was really into St. Patrick’s Day, which meant that none of her relatives were going to get away with not wearing green. Unfortunately for me, I was woefully unprepared when it came to green attire, and ended up wearing something that I really, really wished I hadn’t.

I was initially going to wear a green sweater – the only green item I found after ten minutes of rummaging through my drawers – but Heather wasn’t very receptive to that idea.

“A sweater, Mike? Really? It’s going to be eighty degrees today.”

“I know,” I replied. “But I don’t have any other clothes that are -”

“Green!” Annie suddenly yelled. I turned to see her pointing at a green T-shirt that was balled up in the back of my bottom drawer. I stared at it, confused, as I had no memory of owning a green T-shirt, then pulled it out. Heather immediately started laughing. “I can’t believe she found that!”

This is what she found:

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Me, in 2004, acting silly in the green T-shirt

Back in college my friends called me The Spo! (or did I start calling myself that?) and the name stuck, so one day about nine years ago Heather had this T-shirt made as a joke. I wore it to an afternoon of bowling with my friends, then, after they laughed at it, put the T-shirt in my drawer and forgot about it. That is, until Sunday, when Annie said, “Wear it, Daddy!”

Since we were just going to be hanging out around the house, I threw on the T-shirt. A few hours later, after the three of us had watched way more leprechaun trap videos on YouTube than anyone should ever watch, Heather got a hankering for some corned beef. Remembering that our supermarket sold it, I told her I’d get some and headed out.

Fifteen minutes later I was in line at the checkout with the corned beef, zoning out, when the guy in front of me said, “What’s ‘The Spo!’”

I looked to the guy, confused. He pointed at my shirt. “‘The Spo!’ What is it?”

Doh. I’d totally forgotten I was wearing the T-shirt. My mind raced. I could have told him the truth, of course, but somehow the option of telling this guy that I was wearing a T-shirt with my own name on it (followed by an exclamation point no less) seemed incredibly douche-y.

“It’s a band,” I found myself blurting out. I then looked down, hoping that was the end of it.

“Oh yeah?” the guy continued. “What kind of music do they play?”

Doh (again). As I searched for an answer the lady in front of the inquisitive guy looked over, apparently just as interested in the musical stylings of “The Spo!”

“Rock,” was all I could muster.

“I haven’t heard of them. Are they a local band?”

If the awkwardness in the air could have been measured at that moment it would have been off the charts. For a second I considered confessing the truth, but then I realized that would have made me seem even lamer than if I had ‘fessed up to start with.

“No, not local,” I said. “They’re from Seattle.”

“Seattle. Cool.”

Since I didn’t have a hole in the ground to crawl into, I lifted my corned beef and examined it very closely. Thankfully, the inquisitive guy turned around. But… after he paid for his groceries he looked back and said, “I’m going to Google ‘The Spo!’” I smiled and waved, mortified.

When I got home I Googled “The Spo!” and saw that one of the very first search results was for the MySpace page of a band called “The Spo-its.” I clicked on the page and read the following in their bio: “Their live shows have included live beatings, robots engaged in mechanical sex acts, volunteers from the audience set on fire, and many exploded TV’s.” Just great, I thought. Next time I run into inquisitive guy at the supermarket he’s going to think I’m a total weirdo. Oh well. At least I didn’t get pinched!