That Intriguing Rectal T-Shirt

Sitting at a traffic light on the way home yesterday, a guy walked past. Nothing spectacular there, except for his dark blue t-shirt. Nothing noteworthy in that, a typical heavyweight t-shirt in dark blue, with the standard block white text in two lines. A company or something, so no big deal. But then I read the words on the back of his t-shirt: "RECTAL ENGINEERING." Okay, now he had my attention.

So, what exactly is this guy putting out? Is he a contractor, working for some kind of company that actually does engineering of some sort of rectally-related, ah, sites? Is this a physical engineering firm, with rebar and concrete, aggregate and mortar, doing heavy lifting? If so, does somebody like Joey Rectal own the company? Yeah, I guess that's possible, but I'd think that if my last name were rectal, that I'd have already changed it, or would hope that my ancestors would've been smart enough to do that before I came along. Or maybe it was an immigration officer's idead of a really, really good laugh while punching the clock at Ellis Island back in 1903, to give that dopey Hungarian orphan the American name of Jerry Rectal, instead of Rostovlanis Cxqylanqan. And hey, family pride being what it can be, I guess little Rostov/Jerry opted to keep his given name as his own private statement of his dedication to assimilation, his statement of loyalty to his adopted and adoptive country.

So, in a short time--still at the light--I'd come to one conclusion that this guy was a laborer for a very proud American family business. Sure, that's possible.

Or maybe he's an equipment guy for a medical firm, with the admittedly improbably name of Rectal Engineering. Maybe they do reconstructive surgery, resections, deal with sepsis and other unpleasant conditions and injuries to the very lower portions of the gastrointestinal passageway. Yeah, that's possible, although I'd think that they guy wouldn't be some schlub walking down the street, that maybe he'd be in his own vehicle, on the way to the lab, the operating theater, the rectal engineering facility, that kind of thing. Who knows.

The other explanation I came up with was that maybe this was just a joke t-shirt, like your college intramural basketball standard of Dick and the Four Skins, Fubar Men, Crafty Bastards, the kind of thing. It's totally plausible that someone sat sagging with a beer perched on his chest in the dorm one night and came up with their team sponsor as Rectal Engineering. And now it's a unique, five- or maybe ten-of-a-kind t-shirt that needs to be kept and worn as a statement of what was, a better time, good times, being young(er), having less reponsibilities and burdens. Sure, that's plausible, too.

And that's about when the light went green and it was time for me to move on home. I've done a quick net search and have found no trace of "Rectal Engineering." I've filed it away, for future cross-referencing, but don't really expect to see or hear of this again. Although, I'd like to figure out the mystery.