The Hard Rock Cafe Sweatshirt and the Irony of Life

Every workday, on my walk to and from the parking garage where I park my car for work, I walk past a Hard Rock Cafe. It may seem ridiculous and/or really hard to believe now, but for a brief moment in time when I attended middle school in a small town in southeast Wisconsin, the Hard Rock Cafe logo sweatshirt was the epitome of coolness. It was a status symbol that was only rivaled by the Lacoste polo shirt (collar up, of course). If you were really cool, you’d pair the two in an epic display of tween superiority. And the further away your Hard Rock sweatshirt’s city of origin (which was displayed directly below the logo) was from your own hometown the better. That meant you were that much cooler, because that showed everyone else in school that your family was well off and had the money to splurge on lavish vacations.

For whatever reason, be it for lack of finances or interest (or both?), my parents were never into going on family vacations … anywhere. Actually, we did go camping a few times, but to the best of my knowledge there were never any Hard Rock Cafes located anywhere near the campgrounds we went to. So, that said, for that brief window in time, I coveted one of those damn Hard Rock Cafe sweatshirts. Back then I was a chunky kid in thick glasses with buck teeth who wore J.C. Penny’s Lacoste knockoff polo shirts with a fox instead of an alligator. I was the furthest from cool as you could get. I know, shocking right? For these reasons, I’m pretty sure I professed my desire for said sweatshirt to my Mom on multiple occasions, as if one would magically make me one of the cool kids at last.

A few years later, long after it’s coolness had faded away (because we all know how fickle fashion is), my Mom finally got me one as a surprise. It was from Chicago, the closest Hard Rock Cafe to us and it was purchased by a relative who had visited there. I still remember my mom excitedly giving it to me. I can only imagine how disappointed she must have been upon seeing my incredibly unappreciative, typical teenaged reaction to receiving it. Over the next couple of years, I think I wore the sweatshirt two, maybe three times. It mostly it hung neglected, deep within the recesses of my closet until it no doubt became garage sale fodder only a few short years later.

Flash forward to 2013. The very day I was to start a new job at a building located on Hollywood Boulevard, the one I’m at now and the one with the Hard Rock Cafe that I walk by every day, my Dad had called me early in the morning to tell me that my Mom was rapidly losing her battle with cancer and that I needed to fly home immediately. She passed away within the week that followed.

So now, as I walk by that Hard Rock Cafe every single workday, I’m reminded of that sweatshirt … that stupid sweatshirt that seemed so incredibly important to me at the time. Of course, it never occurred to me to apologize to my Mom about it before then and now, obviously, its too late. The irony of life stings sometimes.