Sesame Street beware: 'E' does not always stand for Elmo

You have to be careful what you wear. Gang colors aside, certain symbols are ambiguous enough to cause real trouble when displayed in the wrong situation.

I offer a case in point. A friend of mine – we'll call him Dave – plays chess in Central Park almost every Saturday. Dave is quite a chess player, having once been only one round away from playing Karpov in a tournament. He's also a BSE candidate, so his weekend chess games are usually followed not by a night on the town but by an extended study session at chez Holder Hall.

Last weekend, however, Dave somehow ended up at The Tunnel, 12th Avenue's trendy nightclub. I think he was just looking for the Lincoln Tunnel and got a bit confused. He wore his coolest clubbing outfit of blue jeans, his Rocky-issue fleece vest and an Elmo T-shirt. On the front of the T-shirt was a very large yellow "e," and on the back was a picture of everyone's favorite Sesame Street character. You know, "e" for Elmo.

It is very important to note that under the dim club lights, all that was visible was the luminescent yellow "e." It is also important to note that Dave is about as sketchy-looking as Bill Gates.

Dave's first couple hours at The Tunnel were spent in a state of confusion that had nothing to do with drugs. People kept coming up to him and demandingly whispering "ecstasy!" in his ear. "Yeah," he replied, "I'm pretty happy, too." Many other club kids asked him where the bathroom was. Dave indignantly told them, "This is my first time here, and even I know where the bathroom is. Find it yourself."

Dave's confusion failed to match that of the clubbers who tried to reconcile his clean-cut appearance with the blatant message of the glowing yellow "e." Some were heard to remark, "Geez, I've never seen anyone be so open about it."

Dave remained oblivious to such implications for quite a while. He collapsed on a couch in exhaustion. Next to him on the couch was a girl who was oblivious in a broader sense. In fact, her head was lolling from side to side and, as Dave explained, "there was definitely something wrong with her." "Jessica!" shouted a male friend, violently slapping her across the face with a side-to-side motion. When she didn't respond, he physically held her eyes open and asked, gesturing with his fingers, "Did you have one or two?"

Dave broke in on the conversation, if you can call it that, to ask, "Dude, did she have one or two of what?"

"Ecstasy!" replied the friend, as if it were obvious. Dave experienced an epiphany as he finally saw the connection between the unconscious girl, the bothersome whisperers and the Elmo T-shirt. "Oh my God! They all think I'm selling ECSTASY!"

The realization came slightly too late, for within minutes The Tunnel's official ecstasy dealer, having heard about a threat to his cartel, had gathered a few of his homies and cornered our unfortunate friend, Dave. "He was mad,"said Dave later, "but I couldn't understand a word he was saying."

It's a testament to Dave's negotiating skills that he was able to escape this unenviable situation by merely turning around and saying "Not ecstasy – Elmo! You know, 'e' for ELMO!"

Thus was my well-meaning, PBS-supporting friend mistaken for a lowly, shall we say, entrepreneur.

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However, there's no reason for you to abandon your favorite garb just because you aren't up on sartorial street language. Just keep your Elmo shirts out of the blacklight, and you should do fine.