I tried to buy a shirt

I remember when H&M were unleashed upon the Austrian market, some commentator in some newspaper hailed them as saviours, because "if you want just a plain t-shirt, they have it; if you want just a plain no-frills shirt, they have it". Uhm well, how the times change.

For some reason, it's getting increasingly difficult to buy a plain black or dark blue shirt without any mumbo-jumbo on it at a decent price. Sure enough, every shop sells them, but the plainer you want your shirt to be, the more you are expected to pay for it.

At some point during my search for The Plain Shirt I was beginning to doubt preconceived notions about the alleged poor dress sense of poorer people. Looking at how the most awful, gruesomly patterened shirts were selling under €10, it suddenly seemed feasible that it's not the dress sense that is to blame; in fact, it's the clothing industry, which has decided that the designs with the weirdest patterns and applications on them come at the lowest prices, whereas a plain shirt simply has its price.

And then once I had shelled out a ridiculous amount of money for that plain, simple shirt, I put it on only to realise that I seem to have a serious anatomical problem. According to shirt manufacturers, my arms are too short. Always have been, by the way. Hardly any shirt that I have has arms that don't seem to be at least four inches too long.

And yes, I am able to reach over my head with my right arm and touch my left earlobe and vice versa. Easily. Still, for some reason most shirts seem to be made for apes. Or by apes. That, on the other hand, might explain the gory colours on all the cheap shirts.