What a sweet trade. So I'm sitting there with some buddies of mine at the bar on Friday night when in walks this dude with a sweet Pabst Blue Ribbon beer distributor shirt on. I'm not a big shopper. I've never walked into a store and saw the perfect anything and proclaimed, "I just have to have that." But when this guy walked in wearing that shirt, all my alarm bells went off. I couldn't focus on anything other than the shirt. Luckily, I was wearing a pretty decent soccer jersey that I had scored some years before, and some people liked it. I was very lukewarm on the shirt, but knew that it had trade value. So I got up and moved over to the guy and introduced myself. His name was Rob and I could tell that he'd been drinking. I wanted to come up with a slow work plan to get the shirt, start off making some idle chit/chat and then ease into it, but I'm not all that subtle.

Me: Hey man, I just love that shirt.

Rob: Well I like yours.

At this point I could hardly contain myself and I circled in for the kill.

Me: Would you want to trade?

With that, he started unbuttoning and I could barely contain myself. I pulled off my soccer jersey and offered it to him as he offered me his shirt. He then asked me if I was sure and I said, "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

It was kind of weird watching him move about the bar with my shirt on and my buddies were a little out of sorts when I came back wearing somebody else's shirt, but I was all smiles. As I left, I asked him one more time whether he was still okay with the trade. He asked me if I was still okay with it and I said I was. He said we still had a deal. It was then that the wifeage came into my head. She was still reeling from my last trip downtown where I'd gotten a ride home from a divorced 47 year old mother of three. How would she respond when I came through the door wearing someone else's shirt? Luckily, she laughed when I told her the story and now my shirt hangs proudly in my living room for all to marvel. At least I think it does. She may have moved it into the garage with all my other hard fought for "treasures." Hope you are well. Tomorrow we reach in to the mail bag and weigh in on how "Project Johnny" is going. Stay tuned and well.

Johnny GoFast