staff

i have thirteen or so camp t-shirts - navy, gray, & the rare white (left) - only three of which bear the bold letters on the back that symbolize maturity & indicate personal economic situation: STAFF. i was overwhelmingly pleased to finally own a staff shirt when i got my first one five years ago. even after i owned one, i coveted staff shirts. four of us stole & shared a yellow staff shirt several years ago with no motive other than wearing a shirt that read "staff" during the dance show. i reserve my camp t-shirts for sleeping, but i reliably choose my staff shirts over my plain camp shirts. & now i am getting what i asked for: those bold, white letters on my back every single day for the next four & a half weeks.
i assume everyone understands why i hate this new uniform. fundamentally yes, i like dressing like a girl. & yes, i understand the concept - campers need to be able to identify their adult, supervising counterparts with ease. but no one has ever mistaken me for a four-year-old or a four-year-old for a counselor. furthermore, getting dressed isn't entirely about looking pretty, making a statement, or mimicking my favourite glamorous historical figures. what i wear dictates my mood, & this t-shirt spoils whatever cheery mood the BBC world news puts me in before i get dressed every day.
so. now that i've adequately ranted, i'll return to the surface-level problems with this navy blue t-shirt, emblazoned with silkscreen on the left breast & this iconic - now insulting - word on the back. i was told i wasn't allowed to alter the shirt. as plain & one-size-fits-all as the t-shirt shape is, the box it creates on one's body cannot be paired with just any other article of clothing. this would be less of an issue if it were not july, because sweaters are burdensome accessories for camp. (save for in the main room where the air conditioning is below freezing & has been since i was nine years old.)
i would like to be able to look at this t-shirt as a challenge, a test of my ability to style & accessorize, but there are only so many ways to wear a t-shirt in july AND dress appropriately to play with babies all day. not to mention the shirt has red on it, which rules out one pair of red shorts & two red skirts i own right off the bat. a week & a half in & i have worn high-waisted shorts, long skirts, short hip-hugging & waist-cinching skirts (as seen above), necklaces, earrings, round-toed flats, pointy-toed flats, sandals, & i even broke out tights with a pair of plain shorts today, taking advantage of the less-than-sweltering temperature outside. i am not going to give up just yet. this is war, staff shirt. here come the lace vest i wore to winter ball in the ninth grade, my tiny top hat, my floral pants from the tenth grade, my hair plumes, & perhaps one of those soda-can-straw-hats with starbucks cups inside, seeing as i've officially become a two-cups-per-morning person. (i will be dead by age 35. plz let me know on what possessions of mine you are keen.)