After reading Shirt-Worthy, my critique of this writer's short story is that is has a purpose that is very well written. He started with a comment that relates to the title, which grabs the attention of the reader wanting to read more. He then had a flashback to when he was boy, and talked about how he borrowed a shirt from his older brother. He then transitioned smoothly into a later date, where he had a child, and his son wanted a Ramones T-shirt. He perfectly executed a reference to the past of the store, Hot Topic, which he explained that he wasn't thinking he was above it, and referenced that he never had a reason to go in using a metaphor of parallelism.
He also used common allusions, such as telling the reader he isn't a “cool detached person” who doesn't know what a Hot Topic store is. I liked how the structure of his story was, from a flashback, working its way to the present. Although there was no super high tension, the climax of this short story was when his ten year old son ripped his new shirt at a cookout. That was when one of the messages of the story came out with the phrase, “No, you just made it better.” The point that the writer was trying to make was that getting the same thing as the guy next to you would just be boring, originality and faults makes one unique. It ties into the main message of having any plain “shirt” is worthless, if there was no background to it.
The writer also tells the reader an analogy of those words of wisdom to a ten year old kid, is like telling a person given a math problem when they are in quicksand in need of help. This analogy was to tell the reader, that the kid wants to hear that he'll get a new shirt, not words of wisdom that only adults can appreciate. That's why the father's resolution was to buy his son a new shirt in the end, and keep the snug ripped shirt to wear himself. This message also brings me back to the beginning where just getting a shirt from a store versus getting a shirt after a concert as a souvenir, the latter has sentimental value, and is special to the person who bought it, which is why the writer mentioned that he only borrowed his brother's shirt. The shirt that his son ripped however, was about to go to waste anyway, and he took it for himself to wear, which gave him a reason to wear his own Ramones shirt.
His intended audience was probably for any mature person who feels lost in material objects. It could be for anyone as well, but it would be like the analogy the author used with a quicksand victim. I particularly like how he wrote his story in order. I feel like I will use a similar format when I write my memoir, and try to incorporate his techniques for writing, such as using analogies and including some dialogue.
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