After Anna had dropped me off at Logan airport in Boston, the second I walked through the automatic doors of the airport I noticed that people were staring at my chest. Now if I had a nice rack I would have expected it. Fortunately I don’t. I was wearing this shirt. The airport is a great place for people watching and for once I realized that I’m the one people are watching.

Some people would look at my shirt and then stare directly into my eyes for a few seconds trying to quickly judge me before they got into the Cinnabon line. Other people would notice the shirt; stare at me, but when I would try to make eye contact they would quickly look away. Much like you will do when pulling up to a stop light. You and the person in the car next to you happen to glance at each other at the exact same time and then quickly look away as if it never happened.

The brave ones would engage me in conversation. The first was the man checking my bag at the Delta counter.

“That’s a weird shirt. Where did you get that?”, he asked.

“On the internet, where most weird things come from”, I responded.

“Ahh, I see. Well it’s interesting. Now only if Joker could fix our economy”, he commented.

How the hell was I supposed to respond to that?

“I’d imagine if the Joker were to fix our economy he would probably do it as a social experiment. Setting bombs off around different US cities in succession. He would try to shut down communication, the internet, phone lines, media, everything so that we as a society would be reduced to panic and chaos. We would have to fend for ourselves. Only after we truly learn who we are as a person can we rebuild as a society. Or maybe he just wants to be the director of such a chaotic event for his personal enjoyment. I’m no expert, I just like Batman.” I said.

The agent at the counter had quickly gone pale standing there with his mouth open.

“Sir, would you come with us?”, the security agents said to me from behind.

No, I didn’t say that. I just stood there and smiled after the ticket agent had sparked my imagination into a flurry of thoughts on what the world would be like if the Joker was our President of Chaos.

Before I had gotten to the security checkpoint I had caught about 50 people staring at my shirt. I had become addicted to people’s reactions to my shirt. A shirt. A simple t-shirt. The Obama picture the shirt the design was copied from has become quite iconic in the last year and a half. Extremely recognizable. Hope. Change. Joke.

As I stood before the metal detectors, waiting for the woman to wave me through I noticed she was also staring at my shirt. She quickly became shifty eyed. Raising her walkie talkie up to her mouth. I couldn’t quite make out the words she was saying, but it was reminiscent of the guards from Half Life 2. She would look left, look back at my shirt, look at my face, then look back left. All while communicating over radio chatter. She was probably speaking with TSA headquarters asking for a quick background check on the “suspicious looking character wearing a Joker shirt”. She waved me through and looked me in the eye. With a smile she said “That’s a great shirt”, she said with a jovial tone.

After collecting my things from the end of the xray detector area, another TSA agent approached me.

“I’ve seen those shirts. The ones with Obama’s face painted like the Joker. The Socialism ones”, he said.

I quickly put together that he had been mistaken, he was thinking of this image.

“Umm, this is The Joker. You know Heath Ledger? The dead guy. As in not our President”, I corrected. I couldn’t let him sit there and think that I was making some political comment on the state of our nation.

“Oh”, he said. “Yea, I just thought you meant…”. He was trying to finish his sentence but I didn’t let him.

“Nope, I just wear this shirt because I’m a giant nerd who likes Batman”.

“Oh, cool”, he replied in a somewhat quizzical manner with his Boston accent.

Cool indeed Sir. Cool indeed. I’m going to wear this Joker shirt every time I’m at the airport. I’ll capture people’s reactions. I’ll document them. This will be my social experiment. I just took people watching to a whole new level. Instead of standard people watching, I’ll be watching the people who are people watching. Dance puppets, dance.