Don't give a fig

 

I have a hunch that Isaac Newton really didn't sit under an apple tree. I suppose purists will argue that fig trees are native to the Middle East. But are you seriously going to quibble about a bad pun on a t-shirt?

I was just grateful that Art AI got the gist of this design in a couple of tries. I did have to add the Fig Newton. It tried to make a fig look like a cookie. But it spelled everything right and created someone who could be Isaac Newton.

I suppose the real point of this pun was that Newton didn't discover gravity despite the popular myth that he was sitting under an apple tree and an apple fell on his head. He did observe falling objects and formulated the law of universal gravitation which basically describes the force of gravity and how it affects objects. That doesn't make for a very funny t-shirt though.

I do, however, respect the gravity of the situation.

Speaking of gravity, I have become enamored lately with the concept of finding things at Goodwill for a pittance and flipping them on eBay for umpteen the cost I paid for them. It is a good concept in theory. But I am discovering the flaw in the overall plan. It is very similar to the flaw in my becoming famous from forcing Art AI to design t-shirts based on my puns. You have to find someone interested in buying the treasures I've picked from the shelves of other people's cast offs at Goodwill in order to quadruple your investment. 

Similarly I need to find people with extremely esoteric and cultivated tastes to understand my t-shirt puns and want to become a walking billboard with them on.

It seems like a good plan to buy a Mickey Mouse mug from Disneyland at Goodwill for $3 and then list it on eBay for $15. That's five times what you paid for it (minus the eBay fees and the time you spend photographing the item, listing it, packing it, and mailing it). And you have to compete with a hundred or so other people selling Mickey Mouse mugs on eBay, some for half the price. Of course, they all aren't the same mug, but you have to wonder what the market is for Mickey Mouse mugs that were pretty much mass produced in the thousands and purchased on a whim when you were delirious from standing in line all day at Disneyland. 

That's why many end up at Goodwill and are snapped up by astute pickers like myself.

Now granted, I have acquired an eye for collectibles from the time I spend in antique malls. But what I am learning is that flipping second hand merch takes lots of patience. And since I don't have a space at an antique mall, it takes up lots of storage space in my office. Which is why I am trying to sell it in the first place. 

But I tell you there is a rush when you find an ashtray from a defunct cruise ship from the 1930s that Amelia Earnhardt sailed on to Hawaii with her airplane back in 1934.  Okay, it has a chip in it, but who is to say that didn't happen when Amelia threw it in a drunken rage at the room steward for not changing a lightbulb on the reading lamp on her night stand?

I think there is a t-shirt design in that story somewhere.