One of the few Christmas gift ideas Jason had for me last year was matching t-shirts for us; a commitment step I was not yet willing to take. In relationship hierarchy, matching shirts comes after moving in together but before marriage, and, a scant two months into our relationship, we weren’t there yet. Sure, put your hands wherever, but stay out of my closet!

But, wanting to make him happy, I compromised. Instead of matching shirts, I bought us coordinating glow-in-the-dark Tron shirts–the light for him, and the dark for myself. The day of our pre-Christmas gift exchange, I wore it to work, carefully styling my hair with a fancy new product. I ended up having to do some work in the warehouse, building up a light sweat, dampening my clothes and hair. It was then that I began to catch subtle whiffs of a foul stench. I did an armpit check–that wasn’t it. I did a surreptitious crotch check–no swamp ass. Where was the smell coming from!? Oh god, it must be my hair. Something about that new product interacted with my hair chemistry and now my head smells like rotten eggs!

I spent the rest of the day downwind from coworkers and rushed home early to wash my hair before Jason’s arrival. But as we sat there, watching Sharktopus, I smelled it again, a combination of rotten eggs and the devil’s buttcrack. I began sniffing at my hair, and all I got was shampoo. Lowering my nose, I sniffed at the shirt, and reeled away from the vomitous odor. It was the shirt all along! What could possibly make a brand new shirt reek so badly?

The next day, I scrounged my apartment for quarters and washed the shirt five times. After drying, it smelled fine, so I felt confident enough to wear it to the post Christmas party I had with Aisling and Chris, but while dancing, it got damp, and the stink started anew, now working its way into the fabrics of my OTHER shirts.

What in the stinky hell IS this shirt? I emailed Threadless, telling them I couldn’t wear a shirt that made me smell like a crotchety dude’s mailbox after he gave out pennies on Halloween, mentioning that a friend had experienced a similar odor with HIS dark Tron hoodie, and asking for an exchange for a non-stinky tee.

Threadless wrote me back, saying that there is an odor associated with their glow inks, but they’ve found it dissipates after a few washes.

Funnily enough, it seems like that’s worth a mention on their site. They talk about potential print imperfections, why not inform a customer there’s a potential they’ll become a social pariah after an afternoon spent exuding pure stink?

But, I persevered. I washed and washed and washed and washed the shirt, finally believing the power of detergent had won out over the stench of sulphurous ooze. I wore it on our beach house vacation this summer without issue…until I realized I’d forgotten to pack a towel and dried myself with the shirt. The damp shirt went back into my bag, and when I unzipped the bag later that day, a finely woven thread of stinky eggs emerged to greet my nose.

Fuck you, Threadless. Fuck you and your smelly shirts.