Life is pretty good...

I’ve seen these tee-shirts and various other products around for quite a while now, at least seven or eight years but not being the glass-half-full type I pretty much cringed at the sentiment, which I thought was only a half-step up from the smiley face that was ubiquitous for way too many years of my adult life (and still is, damn you AOL). This character is named Jake and he’s sort-of the spokesperson or, at least, the catalyst for a multi-million dollar outfit called Life is Good Inc. I’ve never had the least urge to buy anything with Jake on it but I was strolling by a small store on 7th Avenue in Brooklyn named Slope Sports that carries a line of Life is Good stuff, mostly for children seemingly, but they obviously had some sort of backlog of seldom-purchased men’s tees in XL and XXL sizes which drew me to those particular stacks on the two-for-the-price-of-one table. And, you know what? The shirts passed the finger-fondling test with flying colors. Smooth and soft in attractive colors and, better yet, some designs did not have Jake on them.

They are not cheap at the retail price for one but I bought the two offered and, as it turns out, actually like them a lot and love the feel of the nice, soft cloth on my wretched, old, bumpy torso. One of them has a small peace sign on the front and the other a long, skinny, vertical American flag and, yes, both say Life is Good on them but, you know, I don’t mind at all. Sometimes life is good, especially when you like what you buy and feel it was a bargain to boot. When I got home and opened the bag there was, in addition to the two shirts, a free packet of Life is Good lemonade mix and a Life is Good decal. How nice, and it made me feel just jake!