The Legendary Shirtless Driver
A year earlier, Thomas Accrual, was sitting half naked in his kitchen, alone and eating canned foods and stale bread all the while foaming at the mouth. Literally he had the shirt stripped off his back when the stock market collapsed. As a failed day trader, he had become nearly destitute and his wife and children had left him. The days rolled into months and his unfortunate lonely condition morphed into a madness and an obsession over replacing the shirt that was stripped from his body. In the darkness of his abandoned neighborhood, Thomas ran around with chainsaw in hand scaring innocent travelers. His sanity was restored when he took from a poor, ignorant, person a very lucky T-shirt. The loss of such a prized possession drove the victim of Thomas’ attack to the funny farm, but Thomas gained so much more than a shirt, he gained a brand new lease on life and the inspiration and confidence to live it right. Now at the nook in his kitchen, Thomas was fully clothed, with his lucky T-shirt on, enjoying a Saturday morning breakfast with his family, that had recently returned. Thomas’ life was going so well that he had almost forgotten the months he had acted like a ravenous lunatic, and there in lay a danger that he was ignorant of; for you see, the really fashionable T-shirt, that was made from the finest fibers and was designed by a great artist who shall go nameless, had recently been taken for granted.
On that same Saturday, Thomas decided to do some yard work. Oddly the fall had been unseasonably warm, and the grass was growing as if the summer was still going strong. While in the midst of mowing his yard Thomas was perspiring from just about every pore, so he decided to take off his shirt and carelessly threw it up on a branch of a young tree with thin limbs.
Almost immediately Thomas felt an odd feeling inside. A mixture of fear and anger. It was a familiar feeling, an unsettling feeling, a feeling most unwanted, and as the source of his curious feelings was realized it was already too late. The discarded T-shirt was picked up by a gust of wind and had fell onto the handle bars of a teen age boy passing by on his bike. At first glance the boy was excited over his happenstance acquisition. Upon further examination he held up his nose and said, “Whew, I think Mom needs to wash this fabulous shirt before I put it on.” He then folded it carefully over his handlebars and raced towards his home. Having witnessed the boy take his T-shirt away, Thomas slipped back into his old lunatic self.
The Murderous Mower
Immediately, Thomas jumped on his green, John Deere, rider-mower, and went chasing after the boy. Thomas’s wife also had witnessed what had happened, from her bedroom window, and was shocked by his transformation. She ran out trying to save her husband from the madness that had once again infected him but by the time she got to the front door his mower had already sped away. Like a steam engined filled with a raging fire in its furnace, Thomas’s murderous mower was racing towards the unsuspecting boy. Thomas didn’t have to stay on the roads to catch his prey. He mowed through yard after yard, and smashed through countless lawn jockeys, lawn gnomes, garden balls, and plastic pink flamingos. He even managed to drive through an award winning rose bush and not once did he flinched from the pains of the thorns piercing his flesh.
Finally the boy was in sight and Thomas drove up along side his bike. Due to the loud music pouring into his ears from his over-sized headphones the boy did not even hear the roar of Thomas’ monstrous sounding engine. Surprised, the boy found himself being lifted off of his bike, single handedly, by a strange shirtless man. The boy screamed in terror. Thomas snarled while the boy looked directly at his crazed captor. Thomas was so blinded by his own rage he could only see the person who took the shirt and not the bike which had managed to be thrown ahead of the mower and thusly ran over and crushed by his maniacal rider-mower. Thomas was about to inflict a major beating onto the boy, when he realized the boy did not have the shirt on him and that it must have remained on the bike. Having panicked, Thomas threw the boy to the side of the road without any care and quickly turned around and raced to the mangled bike.
At first glance, all Thomas could see were twisted metal bars and tattered rubber scraps; however, upon further review of the accident scene he noticed the many torn pieces of the shirt that had saved his life. He fell upon his knees and wept like a child. Gone forever was his chance at a real life. Certainly, he would lose everything dear to him again for he once more was naked from the waste up, and vulnerable to a world which had shown its utter disgust for pasty, flabby men without shirts. He was hopeless to be sure but was he in fact helpless as he thought he was?
A white Ford Taurus pulled up to the scene of the accident; with the car placed in park, Thomas’ wife stepped out from the driver side. She walked over to her troubled husband and placed a brand new T-shirt around his shoulder. True it wasn’t an identical shirt but it featured an even cooler design from that T-shirt artist who shall remain nameless. As well, there certainly was a renewed since of power, and freshness that came over Thomas as he put it on. He stood up took a deep breath and gave his wife a warm smile of appreciation. Thomas and his wife hugged and as relief filled his heart and mind Thomas said, “Thank Heaven for you Muffin.”
Mrs. Muffin???
His wife blushed and she explained, “Oh Tommy. Don’t you know that I’ve taken precautions and ordered you a whole wardrobe of t-shirts and other quality apparel from that very same t-shirt website (that shall remain nameless) that saved your sanity.”
Thomas had forgotten that fact and now in hindsight he could do nothing else but laugh at the absurdity of his actions, and said, “So I suppose this whole event was for nothing. It didn’t even need to occur…sort of like those sequels to bad monster movies.”
The wife smiled a curious grin as if she was in on some warped joked and then suggested that they go home and back to their normal life. What that joke was however and the real identity of the woman called Muffin is a story for another time…(AND THAT TIME IS OCTOBER 2010 in the blockbuster conclusion to the Shirtless Driver trilogy entitled: THE SHIRTLESS DRIVER ALWAYS RINGS TWICE.)
Now as we leave this haunting tale, remember to always prepare for life’s unexpected events. Don’t be caught with out a shirt on your back! BUY THOMPSON’s T-SHIRTS! BUY LOTS OF THEM! DO IT NOW! BEFORE ITS TOO LATE! OH! and have a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
The End?
Loved the Sequel? Of course you did! Now read the story that started it all:
“The Tale of the Shirtless Driver.“
Matt Thompson
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