“My favourite T-shirt – $24.99 USD”:
“The $24.99 T-Shirt”
I never thought something so simple, so ordinary, could feel like armor.
It was just a T-shirt. Grey cotton, soft as old paper, with the words “One More Mile” stamped across the chest in cracked black letters. Price tag: $24.99 USD, tax not included. I bought it on a forgettable Tuesday from a street market in downtown Austin while killing time between job interviews. It hung from a rack of clearance items, squeezed between cheaply printed tourist tees and novelty shirts advertising imaginary BBQ joints. I grabbed it because the weather had suddenly turned blistering, and the button-down I was wearing felt like a wool shroud.
Nothing special. No famous brand. No designer logo. The label inside simply said “Made in Honduras, 100% cotton, pre-shrunk.” But the moment I pulled it over my head, something changed.
The fabric clung just right—like it remembered the shape of my shoulders, the curve of my arms, as if it had been stitched with me in mind. It breathed, unlike my corporate shirts. It moved when I moved. More than that, those words—”One More Mile”—spoke to me with unnerving force. They weren’t some trendy slogan or mass-printed irony. They were a command.
I wore that shirt to the next interview. A start-up office, buzzing with caffeine and hope. I got the job. I wore it when I ran my first 5K, lungs on fire, knees screaming, crossing the line because the shirt told me not to quit. I wore it to my first date with Emily, who laughed and said, “That’s a running shirt, right? Or are you trying to outlast me tonight?” Three years later, I wore it the day I asked her to marry me.
$24.99.
I wore it when we packed the moving truck and drove west, chasing new jobs, new dreams. I wore it in the hospital waiting room the night our daughter was born—gripping the fabric so tightly my knuckles turned white. The nurses smiled at the words. “One more mile,” one said, glancing at Emily behind the curtain. “That’s perfect.”
The years began to wear it down. The color faded, seams thinned. The cotton lost its snap, frayed at the cuffs, pulled tight at the shoulders. Emily begged me to toss it. “It’s got holes under the arms,” she said, holding it up with a grimace. But I refused. You can’t throw away armor. You can’t replace history.
$24.99 for something that became my second skin, my battle flag.
And then, last summer, after another 10-mile trail run, the sleeve finally tore free. The whole shoulder gave way, as if the fabric itself had run out of miles. I folded it carefully, tucked it in the bottom drawer of my dresser, beside old medals, forgotten notebooks, a faded photo strip from our first fair.
One day, I’ll tell my daughter the story of that T-shirt. She won’t understand—at least not at first—that the price tag never matched its worth. She’ll think it was just a shirt. But I’ll smile, press the soft, threadbare cloth into her hands, and say:
“This carried me farther than I ever thought I could go. $24.99. Best investment I ever made.”
Let me know if you want a version that’s funny, dark, or from another perspective.
