#51 – Owning 50 Bethel Shirts

You never intended for this to happen. You weren’t even aware that it was happening. But one day, you woke up, peeked in your closet, and suddenly you realized that over the years, your wardrobe has accumulated dozens of Bethel T-shirts.

How does a phenomenon like this go unnoticed? Well, most of the shirts were probably freebies and giveaways. As your college career progressed, Bethel t-shirts found their way into your closet and multiplied like interest on a college loan.  You knew that you owned plenty of Bethel shirts—just not that many. So where the heck did all these t-shirts come from? Well, let’s tally them all up, shall we?

Let’s see, you got five of your Bethel shirts way back in your high school days when Bethel reps came to your youth group, camps and conventions and threw them out as giveaways. (5)

On registration day, you brought three rival college t-shirts and the admissions counselors traded each of them for a Bethel shirt. (3)

You got an orientation shirt when you came in as a freshman. (1)

You got a t-shirt from the next year’s orientation for being a block mentor and the orientation after that for being an RA. (2)

Your grandma went to the Bethel bookstore and bought you three Bethel tees for your birthday your freshman year. (3)

Your sophomore year, you came across a Bethel tee at Goodwill, and it was only a dollar, so you bought it. (1)

That one summer when you were a member of summer teams, the admissions counselors gave you six t-shirts to represent Bethel at the different camps you went to. (6)

Two of the camps you counseled at over the past few summers were sponsored by Bethel, and the Bethel College logo made it to the back of the camp shirt, constituting itself as a Bethel t-shirt. (2)

Your older brother, who also went to Bethel, outgrew one of his shirts and gave it to you. (1)

You got a t-shirt from the October service day every year, so that’s four t-shirts. (4)

Each year, your dorm designed its own t-shirt and you bought one, so there’s four more. (4)

You attended tip-off madness every year and got a free tee, so there’s another four. (4)

You forgot to bring one of your t-shirts on a Bethel-sponsored trip where you were supposed to be representing Bethel, so you took one of your plain white tees and fashioned your own Bethel t-shirt using a permanent marker. (1)

One of your roommates left behind a Bethel tee on move-out day, so you took it, and they never asked for it back. (1)

You got a Bethel College Futsal shirt when the soccer team broke the Futsal world record last April. (1)

Don’t forget the ten shirts you collected from playing intramural sports. (10)

Then you looked inside your closet and counted 49 Bethel t-shirts and thought that you might as well go ahead and make it an even 50. So you went to the bookstore and bought a Bethel baseball shirt, even though you don’t play varsity baseball. But it doesn’t matter. You own 50 Bethel shirts now, and that makes you awesome.