some (necessary) wardrobe changes

Tomorrow, I'm off to the Dominican Republic with HHI. Although I couldn't be more excited to get the show on the road, packing is a complete nightmare. My room looks like eight tornadoes and two hurricanes and maybe a rabid raccoon worked their way through it. In short, it's a disaster zone. I only have a small backpack in which to haul all of my belongings, so I have to make sure what I pack really counts. But I have a lot of t-shirts; I've been proudly cultivating this collection since the seventh grade, and I'm a pack rat who doesn't let go of things easily. It's been a challenge to figure out which shirts will make the cut, but some edits have been easier to make in my wardrobe than others. Take this shirt --

This one screams, "Come at me, bro! I'm an American!" Great for the 4th of July. Not so great for engendering goodwill in foreign lands.

After the break are some more t-shirts that - although hilarious and ironic and appropriate here in the U.S. - are entirely inappropriate once taken out of the American context.

My parents got me this t-shirt when they went to Beijing, China this summer. I'm a fervent Democrat, and I love President Obama with all my heart. (Seriously. I had a cardboard cutout of our 44th President in my sophomore year dorm room.) I love this shirt because of the kitsch factor, but it really doesn't look too good on us Americans. We're capitalists, man.

This shirt might be appropriate to wear abroad, but I'm too on the fence about it. The two sweaty men in leotards grabbing at each other are just a little bit too suggestive.

This one is pretty self-explanatory.

I have such fond memories of this shirt. I got it at the first and only Nateva Music Festival in Maine, and it's comfortable and gives me the warm fuzzies whenever I put it on. It is a beer, but I don't think that's really an issue in of itself. The logo is pretty nondescript, and I could probably get away with it since Narragansett is also the name of a town in Rhode Island, as well as a brand of beer. It's a relatively clean, relatively neat t-shirt. Until you see the back--

Classic Clammie the Clam. Just bringing it to a whole new level of inappropriate.

So I'm just going to stick to plain t-shirts and let these bad boys hibernate in my closet for the next few months. But just watch out. Once I'm back in the country, all of these suckers are going to be coming out in full force, and they'll stop being culturally insensitive and start being totally awesome once again.