PITTSBURGH – Local concertgoer Roger Macmillan ruined his brand-new $60 tour t-shirt with a perplexingly expensive Bud Light at record speed, witnesses report.
“Perfect, just perfect,” Macmillan said, wringing the sopping hem of his screen-printed tee back into his empty cup. “I bought this less than three minutes ago and it’s already trashed. I cannot believe I just shelled out more than a tank of gas for this thing, put it on like an idiot, and then spilled an entire beer down my front like an even bigger idiot. Holy fuck, please just euthanize me at this rate. The Bud Light was the cheapest beer the bar had, too. I would rather drink on a red-eye flight than recreate this experience.”
“Merchlord” Dylan Maroney, who sold Macmillan the shirt in question, has seen this exact scenario play out before.
“Ah yeah, the classic one-two punch,” Maroney said while checking out three customers at the same time using a single 5th-generation iPad. “Happens all the time. Guys waltz up here thinking they’re hot shit, paying with their Apple Watch or whatever, putting on the shirt right away because ‘the AC is on pretty high’ in here. And then boom, like a force of nature, they spill whatever dogshit beer they’re guzzling right down their whole fuckin’ torso. I gotta say, the look on their faces is a little bit priceless, though I’m happy to have a strict no-returns policy for overpriced beer stains.”
Financial advisor Tony Hunziker provided his expert insight on how to avoid this sort of fiscal disaster.
“These kids don’t know a thing about how to best protect their assets,” Hunziker said from his inexplicably smoky corner office. “A tour shirt is a serious investment for a punk, even an aging one, and going in willy-nilly without a clear plan is a one-way ticket to looking like our boy Roger here. I’ll give ya three tips: buy your merch after the set, if not, drink at the back of the venue so you don’t get bumped around, and sneak in a tiny flask instead of shilling out at the bar. That will be $350 for the advice.”
At press time, Macmillan was seen leaving the set early so he could get home and wash his shirt before the overwhelming heat that had built up in the pit set the stain permanently.
Photo by Roger Harris.