Man’s wardrobe choices end bullying and breast cancer; Livestrong bracelets still don’t do shit
By Brad McLeod
Photos by Mark Burnham
VANCOUVER — Despite the best intentions and hard work done by social activists and scientists alike in the past several decades, both bullying and breast cancer officially ceased existing thanks to an unexpected hero, a man who wore a pink t-shirt to work last week.
Hal Lungren, a 43-year-old schoolteacher from the Joyce- Collingwood area, reportedly ended both the abstract concept of “bullying” and the very specific disease of breast cancer by simply walking outside his house
in a colour of clothing not typically associated with his gender. “It was absolutely astonishing,” recalled one witness of Lungren’s enigmatic display of bravery, “I remember he passed me by on the street and as soon as I saw his shirt I instinctively knew I was cured. The lump in my breast was gone . . . and in reaching for my chest I also let go of this person that I had been noogieing for the last hour. Suddenly, I didn’t even have the urge to chase after them.” As Lungren walked through his neighbourhood, everyone he passed was rid of both the cancer in their breasts and the rage they felt towards weaklings, poindexters and dweebs.
The feeling soon spread across the city, and by Sunday, the nation. By the next morning bullying and breast cancer were no longer world problems, joining the ranks of the bubonic plague and terrorism.
As of yet, scientists have not been able to explain the phenomena of the pink shirt, but it is not the first time an article of clothing has made such a dramatic impact on society. In the 1940s in Italy, black shirts were able to rid the country of pesky things such as democracy and happiness, in the 1970s, a Che Guvera t-shirt overthrew an oppressive dictatorship in Cuba, and more recently, shirts bearing the word “swag” finally gave an identifiable mark to people who should be avoided at all costs.
As for Lungren’s pink shirt, those involved in raising awareness about the previously littleknown anti-bullying and breast cancer movements are baffled as to why they weren’t able to yield the same results with their own pink attire.
“I think the big difference between the shirt that ultimately ended bullying and breast cancer, and those that just raised a little awareness
about them, was the shade,” explained Tom Johnson, a doctor of Interior design. “Most of the breast cancer apparel had been excessively magenta and the anti-bullying stuff was too dull and faded . . . Mr. Lungren’s shirt was just the perfect shade of pink to finally make the world realize the tragedy of breast cancer and bullying. Although Mr. Lungren has
been celebrated as a hero for standing up to bullying and cancer, instead of being another white shirt-wearing sheep, he’s told the media that the entire event was actually an accident and the shirt he wore was in fact just a white shirt that had gotten mixed in with his red laundry.
Regardless of his motivation, Lungren triumphed in defeating two of the world’s biggest evils, with probably the only remaining global problems being homophobia, drought, famine, every other type of cancer, hepatitises A–E, malaria, AIDS, racism, genocide, murder, cyberbullying ( which was somehow it was unaffected), rape, alcoholism, drug addiction, sobriety, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, Harlem shakes, swarms of killer bees, southern comedian Killer Beaz, the band Phish, and the general depression of every human being on earth.
