A Hot Topic Day

For those of you who are not frustrated adolescent goths, there's a store at many suburban malls called Hot Topic. They specialize in... clothing for frustrated adolescent goths. Well, not ENTIRELY goth, the incurably hip sixteen year old and the tragically cool college student also have a niche in this shop. The employees are all dyed, pierced, and Cool. They employ scrawny boys and fat chicks (do NOT call them Rubenesque or plump or well endowed, they are FAT and usually wear buttons asking if you have a fucking problem with that, and damn if they don't pull off the sexy clothes thing from sheer attitude). Their cars have Darwin fish and stickers for obscure bands that I was never cool enough to listen to. They carry tons of T-shirts and stickers and pins with clever and cynical little sayings meant to appeal to people who are Different, just like all their Different friends.

The ironic thing about Hot Topic is that apparently it is only cool for those of us who were never cool. There's an entire sub-sub culture that buys, wears, and listens to Hot Topicish things, but they are entirely too cool to actually purchase things from Hot Topic. Something about poseurs. See, this is why so many people just follow the mainstream. It's EASIER.

But I am a poseur, I'm okay with that, and I have craploads of cynical T-shirts from Hot Topic. And today was a very Hot Topic T-shirt day:

"Some days it's not worth gnawing through the restraints in the morning."