There’s nothing ratty about letting the world know you’re Armenian

Some people don’t believe in coincidences. I don’t believe in Armenian coincidences. We’re all connected, especially on the Internet.

I was Googling just recently for interesting shirts to wear on our summer sojourn when I came across the cleverly named Ara The Rat line of Armenian-theme tees. They caught my eye because they’re not quickie adaptations of generic ethnic slogans you can find at the mall. (For example: Kiss Me I’m Irish becomes Kiss Me I’m Hye.)

The Rat packs an artistic mix of tributes to famous Armenians, some mythical (David of Sasun), some real (Gomidas), and some just plain famous (Kim Kardashian). There’s also plenty of Armenian humor, such as the combined Zoravor salute to Armenian weight lifters and our beloved watermelons.

I started making mental notes about my favorites tee shirts but got distracted by my long to-do list. Then Robyn shared a Facebook message from the human behind the sartorial rat, Kegham Shamlian. He’d been doing some web searching of his own and came across our recent post about the family shish kebab machine.

He wanted permission to reproduce the photo of Robyn’s father for a Father’s Day promotion. Of course, we were happy to oblige—so happy, we decided to share the link to his post.

Now that writing this item has been checked off my to-do list, I’m going to see a Rat about a shirt – or two!