SWAG R' US

I have an admission to make that won't get me any praises from the fine folks over at The Story of Stuff.  I love to get swags, or souvenir stuff, from the road races I participate in.  With a typical race, you get at least a cotton T-shirt.  It gets nicer if you get a tech shirt, one of them hi-tech shirt that wicks away the sweat as you run so that by the end of the race you are relatively dry.  A long-sleeve tech shirt, like that from the Brooklyn Marathon, is even better!  If it's a fat-ass run, i.e. no registration fee, no official time, no water support along the course etc, I don't expect any tangible memento.  But if I pay a load of money, I hope to at least get something to possess out of the experience.

I discovered quickly though that I have too many T-shirts, tech or otherwise.  Still, I take them when they are offered to me.  Some people I know already achieved a higher level of enlightenment and actually refuse the shirts, or whatever swag.  On a few occasions, at races where I helped out as a volunteer, shirt supply went out quickly, or never arrived in the first place, so I got no tangible souvenir from those races, but I felt no loss.  I am not 100% enlightened, but I am getting there.

Race officials know this over-abundance and some try to do something different.  Like the combo hat-neck-warmer (HNW) of the PPTC Turkey Trot a few days ago.  One size fits all, unlike the T-shirt, with which I often see in social media women complain about not having small sizes for them.  Their physically larger male partners/spouses end up with the XL shirts.

Below are the four ways I plan to use the HNW.  With the pull-string completely drawn to seal off one end, you can use it as a hat.  Open the pull-string and pull it down and you can catch some sleep in a bright room.  Pull it down some more to reveal your eyes and you can pull a bank heist to raise enough fund to enter a certain five-borough marathon.  Lastly, aaaahhh, warm and toasty around your neck, it's a neck-warmer!

How do you plan to use your swag from the PPTC Turkey Trot?