Spasming Grandmas 2007 Concert Tour Merch T-Shirt

On the Shelf:	Behind the Counter:
₵$34 Ghost Tobacco (20)	₵$100 Mud Proof Boots
₵$15 Bloody Mary	₵$24 Fire Chicken Feathers (doz.)
₵$50 El Dorado Green (1/4)	₵$7 Fine MRE Spice (p/g)
₵$12 Black Meat (g)	₵$105 Four Pack of Beer
₵$1 Slut Root (kg)	₵$20 Sex Doll Goon Sack
₵$30 Marital Aid Potion	₵$116 Bux. Semp. X Cannabis
₵$40 Quetzalcoatl Feathers (doz.)	₵$28 Bottled Emotions (qt.)
₵$5 Blue Roses (doz.)	₵$20 Self-Cooking Olive Oil (375 ml)
₵$33 Mythril (oz.)	₵$125 Brick of Cocaine
₵$4 BZTCN	₵$74 Memory Coffee

This Week's Special:

Cost of living is a bitch but bitch has got to live, not merely survive. Emily thought she could keep her hands busy without spending money on cloth to tailor. One week in and her smoking had doubled. Two weeks in and she wrote list of her co-workers, ranked on wearability of their skin.

Emily decided to op-shop for cheap, recyclable fabrics. Looking for interesting patterns to repurpose, she found a men's t-shirt with green Day-Glo skull behind faceless rockers. She thought: that would be neat to fuck in.

The Spasming Grandmas 2007 Concert Tour Merch T-Shirt went into her drawers. It was one of the few articles randomly spared the scissors on a night, frustrated, drunk, with lack of inspiration. She needed asparagus the morning after, so Emily wore it (with pants!) to the supermarket. A passing gentleman cast gaze, slowly growing in worry, onto the green skull:

'Oh. You were there.'

The man one-eightied and fled. Tradies were dollying  a mirror into a cafe fit out, because this economy is weird like that. Emily saw: the regularly faceful man's reflection had no face. Nipples hardened, beady eyes bulging from empty sockets.

Seeking market deets, Emily wore the shirt whilst buying (sneaking) a round (flask) of drinks (moonshine) for musicians (snob wanks).

'We share fans.' Adrian obliged. 'They like me because I have no soul.'

'Mhm.' Less about yourself, please. 'You've seen them live?'

'No luck. They are out of this world, or dimension. The band, and fans, aren't human. They doppelgang good but will eat your healthcare without blinking.'

'Thank you.' Emily pours the last of her flask into Adrian's  glass. 'But I'll take my leave.'

'You wouldn't be looking to sell that shirt? I'd display social capital to soulless fans, and wear it better.'

Aghast: 'I was looking to sell but you, mister, better pay the right price.'

'I have crickets.'

One of which chirps into silence.

'Is that your best offer?'

'It's just a shirt, stranger. Merch is always overpriced.'

Very well, Emily decides to spend her shirt elsewhere. Dr Woke's lair is in an active volcano, because housing shortage. The road ascending the mountain is very smooth. Emily waits outside Dr Woke's office because he is in a Skype meeting:

'And so, gentlemen, if you do not meet my demands within forty-eight hours, I will teach pandas missionary position.'

On one of the eight screens, Keir Starmer raises curious hand: 'I'm new to... this. So, this is a woke-themed super-villain?'

'Oui!' Macron massages brow. 'Mais oui!'

Starmer continues: 'But he's a straight white man?'

Dr Woke affirms: 'And cis. And neuro-typical.'

'Uhhh.'

'He's the villain.' Biden's got better shit to do. 'He's woke, so he avoids queer-coding. It's obvious, even I understand it.'

Agreement: 'Da.'

Starmer continues: 'And he's one of yours?'

'I'll never live this down.' Anthony Albanese cries into second bottle of Tenuta 'Sassoregale' 2021 Sangiovese. 'I'm still getting shit about the shiny wool.'

'And why don't we just assassinate the pandas?'

Dr  Woke chuckles: 'And how would world peace fair without panda diplomacy?'

Xi Jinping laughs manic. The screens go blank. Dr Woke scratches his balls before noticing Emily.

'Oh hey you.'

'Hiii. Just popping in, seeing how you're doing.' They hug. They went to high school together, in adjacent groups. He was shy in those days but they kept crossing paths and, upon recollection: coulda shoulda woulda. It is a whole thing. 'Well, by the looks of it.'

'Yeah, got a reno done after the Sparkly Yarn campaign.'

She knows, but: 'That's right. How did that go, again?'

Flashbackery: Dr Woke heard on a podcast that times of economic pressure caused society to lean towards heteronormative heterodoxy, heterocetera. Correlation is not causation but Dr Woke looked into it. He discovered that four stripes* are inclined to figurative gay bash unless distracted by shiny things of economic prosperity.

With opportunity discovered, Dr Woke developed cheap technicolour wool that sparkled in light of moon or sun. He threatened world leaders with the release of Sparkly Yarn and they paid him a handsome ransom and then some. They feared a world where people had better shit to do than decide who or why other people fucked.

Emily smiles but her foot is tapping: 'So what did you do with the Sparkly Yarn? You made a prototype hundred balls?'

'This was not just a pop in.' His smile adopts a touch of smirk. 'And what were you willing to fork out?'

She points both hands at her torso but Dr Woke gets the wrong erection.

'She meant the shirt.' Iris is here now and gives Dr Woke a clipboard. 'Please sign the thing.'

Dr Woke does so: 'Iris, Emily. Emily, Iris. Iris has been managing a road project. Emily is trying to convince me to buy a shirt.'

'It was a nice drive up here.' Emily claps and holds hands. 'And the shirt makes extra-dimensional beings panic.'

'That does not sound inclusive.' Dr Woke declines. 'I do not want to have to wear a jumper carrying trigger warning for inner layers.'

Iris: 'Panic?'

'Yeah. They sprint off. One ran through a mirror, sliced open their throat. They don't bleed, funnily enough.'

'That is funny.' Iris claps and holds hands. 'If they're not human, do you reckon it's all right to murder them?'

Cost of living is a bitch but bitch has got to live, not merely survive. The dating scene is a bit thin at the moment so Iris sought other means of scratching itch. Her side of the phone call:

'Hi, this is Iris calling. I heard you organise people-hunts... Mhm, people hunting other people as blood sport, all very consenting... Yes, and how much do you charge?... The fuck, who can afford that?... So how much do you pay to be hunted?'

So Iris was flown to a private island off the coast of Victoria. In the hunting lodge, Iris shook hands with the dozen gentlemen who would be hunting her. They gave her five minutes head start. She found a humble cudgel, got bored, returned and smashed two hunter's heads into urinal wall. Hunters were hunted and, with fourteen bodies piled before her, post-blood-nut clarity set in.

Thinking out loud: 'They paid me... they're allowed to hunt me... I didn't pay them... I didn't give them my BSB. Fuck!'

Iris stripped the hunters' clothes and bundled those into two suitcases. There were larger suitcases but the two chosen had wheels. She hitchhiked a lift home from a passing narco sub.

Iris, in salesman mode: 'And they're rich people clothes. Cravats, scarves, the sweaters you only wear with arms tied around your shoulders to boat club. I'll give you a suitcase for that one shirt.'

Emily's scissors are ready, but: 'A small closet's worth of clothes stolen from upper-crust murder victims. I'd say I'd launder them, but the wordplay eats its own tail.'

Ooh, velociraptor.

Iris farts: 'Uh, both suitcases?'

'Mm. If you insist.'

Whilst Dr Woke hopes that this swapping of clothes happens in front of him.

 

*Types of straight.