Breast cancer & bowling -- a touchy subject

So we're cruising the aisles at the recent South Jersey Chamber of Commerce show, and we run into one of our new favorite people. Mary Hunter, who I know from a networking group, is at company's booth, smiling, chatting, pleasant as usual.

I know that Mary is running an event to raise money for Breast Cancer awareness. She dubbed the event "Bowling For Boobs." Now you have an idea of why she's one our New Favorite People List.

So I'm talking to Mary about the event, asking her when it is and how the fundraising is doing. I then casually drop the idea to sell a t-shirt at the event saying "I spared the pair"... a risque double-entendre about a bowling and boobs. She laughed and sort-of laughed off the idea.

Until the next morning.

"I talked to my husband about your idea," she said. "He loved it. Can we do it? The event's next week."

We quickly huddled with our designers and combined some of Mary's ideas with some of our own. We modified the awareness "ribbon" to incorporate two bowling pins. We put he name of the event on the shirt, two well-positioned bowling balls and the "I spared the pair" tagline. We had 50 white shirts printed with the design printed in pink and dropped them off a couple of hours before the event. And the shirts sold out...success all around!

We told this story to a few people, and were surprised at the reaction. While most enjoyed it, one person thought we were making light of breast cancer. Another thought the placement of the "bowling balls" was in poor taste.

My response...."oh well."

I admire Mary's gumption for taking a serious health threat that is generally talked about in hushed terms and having a bit of fun with it. Most men are reluctant to talk about "breasts" -- and especially breast cancer -- but have no trouble with the word boobs. And the fact that Mary was able to combine all of this on a t-shirt -- which helped raised money for an admirable cause -- is especially satisfying.

What do you think about the idea and the shirt? Feel free to post your response...