There's another thing that I can personally count on and it happens when I wear my favourite shirt: my Boston Red Sox "Screw the Curse" t-shirt. Whenever I put on the shirt I’m guaranteed to generate enough stares at my chest that it makes me feel like I’m channeling Scarlett Johansson. I attract a range of comments, looks, stares and compliments that no other t-shirt would possibly be able to conjure up.

 I got the shirt in 2004 during that magical Red Sox season where they won their first World Series since 1918 and pulled off one of the greatest playoff comebacks of all-time by rallying from a 3-0 ALCS deficit to beat the hated New York Yankees. The Screw the Curse shirt became a sort of unofficial shirt for the team that season adopted by several Red Sox players, most notably Manny Ramirez who was seen and photographed wearing the shirt on several occasions. An original creation of the now defunct website www.the-hubbub.com the shirt quickly struck a chord with Red Sox Nation and became a must have. I ordered up my own piece of New England popularity midway through that 2004 season and proudly wore it around the streets of our nation’s capital, decrying my support of the Sox in their attempt to overturn that dreaded curse that the team had been saddled with for the better part of 86 years, coinciding with the franchise’s ill-fated decision to sell the legendary Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.    

 The shirt’s design is ingenious for its simplicity, messaging and skirting around Major League Baseball trademark restrictions. Nowhere on the shirt do the actual words ‘Boston’ or ‘Red Sox’ appear but yet the connection with the Red Sox can instantly be drawn. The font used to write the “The Curse” is written in the unmistakable type face that the Red Sox have made famous and the colouring of the shirt stays true to the team’s palette. The picture of the screw adds the visual context to the shirt and in a throwback to the old days of the Alex Trebeck hosted Classic Concentration game show, the combination of the screw image with the words “The Curse” force the interpreter of the shirt to solve a pseudo puzzle. I’ve personally experienced the look that people get when they stare at the shirt and try to put together its meaning and I would best describe it as the look that one gets when they try to rationalize what the Canucks were thinking when they added “Vancouver” across the front of their jerseys crossed with the satisfied look of a guy who’s just tested negative for a Maury Povich paternity test.

 In the three years since I’ve gotten the shirt I’ve brought it on several trips I’ve taken and without fail the shirt generates interest everywhere I go. And surprisingly the shirt’s reaction isn’t just restricted to members of Red Sox nation either; it’s an equal opportunity shirt that strikes a chord across sexes, ages and borders. It’s gotten to the point where I now purposely wear it if I’m going to be in social situations like the airport, the mall or sporting events just because I’m curious as to the level of response the shirt will generate.

 If other Screw the Curse t-shirt owners are experiencing this same kind of reaction that I get we may have a Brotherhood of the Traveling Shirt movement on our hands.