My favorite Tuesday shirt has been lost forever. It was a Morris the Cat 25th anniversary long sleeve Henley, featuring the well known TV feline subtly placed below the five button placket as if dawdling into oblivion. It was a quality shirt; one would not believe was the end result of collecting with steadfast pride, proofs of purchases from the back of a certain cat food (Fancy Feast?) while working at ‘Cheap Johns’ candy and smoke discount store. My body trembled when the postman hand delivered a package that read ‘From Fancy Feast’ on it. The shirt had a luxuriously soft hand, as soft as a Queen’s tongue. It had suffered quite a bit of damage when a smoldering joint cherry went bomb’s away on Morris’s head, singing it badly as I was driving with friends in a truck somewhere through Albany, NY.
This shirt was worn almost every Tuesday by me for quite a stretch. It was so admired that I feared for its being snatched by a drunken friend pretending to slip away to my restroom during get together. Ultimately it was my decision to cook a homemade marinara sauce without my lucky apron that did it in. The splotches of pork infused tomato perfection had perverted its appeal forever. I searched high and low for another 25th anniversary Morris the Cat item that would mitigate the loss. I ended up with a non-functioning cheap watch. It still had Morris’s handsome face centered in a circle with two rings…one a dark red and the other black. Long live proof of purchase garments, long live my Fancy Feast friend’s memory.
Domenic Maltempi