Textual Relations with a T-Shirt

Let's keep things in context...

I'm merely trying to help.

(Image from Engrish.com)

Yesterday's blog entry about a woman's t-shirt has occasioned a number of insinuations -- with a bit too much accent on that second syllable:

in·SIN·u·a·tion

Please note that the "sin" here deserves only minor stress, the major emphasis being elsewhere, way elsewhere:

in·sin·u·A·tion

Now as to my other-than-prurient interests in a certain t-shirt, allow me explain myself clearly -- and I will draw upon some of the discussion in yesterday's comments to make my point.

In staring at the back side of that woman's t-shirt, I was -- as I later discovered upon learning the meaning of "allantion" -- merely trying to educate myself about skin care.

Close readers will have noted that my eyes were directed solely to the text inscribed upon the t-shirt, not to the woman beneath that skirt. I mean shirt. Anyway, as I explained in the comments, although postmodernists would have it that all the world's a text -- a convenient philosophy for anyone who might wish to imply that my textual interests extended beyond the text on the shirt to the text beneath the text -- I insist that I was merely looking at the body of text on the shirt. That the shirt was clothing a woman was immaterial, mere pretext.

But I want to say one thing to my readers. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again. I did not have textual relations with that woman.

I admit that I did have textual relations with that woman's shirt, so I should perhaps remind readers of precisely what the text was:

In your life and work, you will meet many kinds of people. Some will be hardworking. Others will be less so. Some will be outgoing. Others will be shy. Some will be kind. Others will be unkind. Some will be your friends. Some will not (etc.) . . . . They all deserve your allantion.

Such was my focus, my attention, and even as I passed the woman bearing this text, I didn't so much as glance at her face, so intent was I upon retaining the puzzling wisdom that I'd just read concerning the fact of everybody needing my allantion.

Not that a glance would have made any difference anyway, for I'm just a little bit too married for any other woman...