Last year, in anticipation of a much-needed escape to the Caribbean, Brynne surprised me with a few “fun” shirts to populate my wardrobe for the tropics.
My favorite was a Hawaiian-like button-down shirt patterned with colorful pineapples – upside-down ones, right-side up ones, some with eyeballs, some wearing reading glasses, others donning sunglasses.
It earned a surprising amount of favorable comments.
Originally, I thought my pineapple print shirt’s popularity was due to the carefree fun it conveyed. The more people who favorably commented on it, the more that I began to feel like I had become the most interesting man on the island – despite a lifelong trail of evidence to the contrary. Several years ago, my immediate boss at that time actually nodded off during my annual performance review. I’ve never felt less significant.
I do like it when people compliment my shirts, especially T-shirts decorated with slogans and images that define my interests. It’s a way to meet new people with similar curiosities.
Recently, I ordered a T-shirt advertising one of my favorite bands from the ‘70s, WAR. On the shirt’s front is their iconic album cover for Why Can’t We Be Friends? You know … the one with the big gold-toothed grin. The one on my T-shirt included a marijuana cigarette dangling from the traditional smile. For the record, I’ve never smoked pot. But I love WAR. I find peace with WAR. Besides, it’s illegal in Indiana. Pot, not WAR. I’m a law and order type of guy. Should a “Hoosier high” ever become legal, who knows … maybe I’ll find peace in pot while listening to WAR.
Unfortunately, as much as I love to wear my WAR T-shirt, it hasn’t gotten anywhere near the response that my pineapple shirt received in St. Croix.
“Nice shirt,” I was told by a fellow vacationer.
“Love the shirt, man,” I was told by a waitress.
And that’s how Mayor Scott Saalman of Swingtown learned the lore of pineapples. (Photo provided by Scott Saalman)
“My wife got it for me,” I responded each time the shirt got a compliment. I didn’t want to take credit from where credit was due. Brynne had surprised me with it. I’m sure there were plenty of crazy shirts to choose from on Temu. Apparently, she really wanted her man decked out in pineapples down on Fantasy Island.
“Wow, really? Your wife bought it?” the strangers responded, seeming even more interested knowing my wife had surprised me with it.
I interpreted their amazement to mean: What a fun couple!
We ARE a fun couple!
A couple from Georgia joined us for brunch after one of them, also in pineapple attire, noticed my festive shirt. We were like twins. That we both wore pineapples in public seemed so funny that my new pineapple compadre and I posed for a photo.
I posted a few Facebook photos of me in my pineapple shirt – one with me and the other woman. It generated several likes. It felt good to be validated for wearing a shirt picked out for me by my wife. One FACEBOOK friend commented: “LOL. You do know what a pineapple means?”
I’m a fun guy, that’s what it means, I thought. My wife and I are a fun couple!
Some FACEBOOK friends selected the “Haha” emoji in response to the “You do know what a pineapple means?” comment, which made me a bit uneasy, the way an outlier feels in the face of an inside joke – especially if the inside joke could be at his expense.
A quick Google search taught me more than I wanted to know about pineapples: “Pineapples are used as a secret symbol for swingers to identify each other. A pineapple badge, piece of clothing or stuck on someone’s door can mean they are looking for a partner swap or using it as an invitation to a swinger party.”
Swingers!
Was that why total strangers had been going out of their way to compliment my shirt?! Were they actually swingers who thought Brynne and I were swingers? Did we accidentally land on Swinger Island? I’d heard there are cruise ships for that – but a whole damned island!!!?
Steve Miller Band’s “Swingtown” immediately came to mind: “Come on and dance, come on and dance; we may not get another chance; you know the night is falling; and the music’s calling; and we’ve got to get down to Swingtown …”
Suddenly, I felt like the de facto mayor of Swingtown!
I don’t swing. I’ve never swung. I don’t have swinger hips. I’m not sure it’s legal to swing in Indiana – though I hear Happy Hour is back. If invited to a neighborhood key party, I’d simply Uber there just to avoid the awkwardness of blindly fishing for someone else’s keychain from a fish bowl of sin.
My pineapple shirt suddenly lost any semblance to tropical island innocence. I decided that I better delete my Facebook post before someone – my daughter, for example – actually made some wiseass comment like, “Sleazy in the Islands.”
I looked up from Facebook and eyed Brynne, who was lounging on a hotel beach chair.
“About this pineapple shirt you bought me … well … it’s apparently quite popular down here.”
“Well, it’s definitely you,” she said.
“Yea, but not really.”
“Huh?”
“Honey,” I said. “About this shirt you picked out for me … are you trying to tell me something?”
Email Scott at scottsaalman@gmail.com.