When I was a kid they told us not to wear t-shirts with our names on them so that kidnappers wouldn’t come to the school and be like “Hey Billy, you mom sent me to pick you up!” This of course was years after I was in elementary school wearing iron-on t’s of sports cars and skulls with snakes through their eyes and my name on the back in glittering hobo typeface. Years later I watched a video Mr. T made in the eighties about how to Be Somebody… or Be Somebody’s Fool! One of his lessons was not to wear name brand clothing. Don’t get caught up in wearing someone else’s name on your shirt. Be yourself. Write your own name on your clothes. Wait a minute… that’s not what the police who visited the school said! Then I go back a step and imagine a very stupid kindapper trying to lure “Hey Tommy Hilfiger, your mom said to get into my van made of candy!”

I used to be very afraid of being kidnapped when I was a kid so maybe I’m just trying to make light of something that used to frighten me. Like snakes, fire, ghosts or Mr. T.