I am tired of swag.** When I receive swag from trade events, etc., I try to give it away or not accept them in the first place. I don’t like to accept things from companies, lest it appears that my journalistic integrity is compromised. I especially hate free t-shirts. I seem to not be able to get away from it, however, especially at work. There seems to be a t-shirt, jacket, or something for every all-hands meeting or team event out there.

The one free t-shirt I really wanted to wear, but never have, is the one I received when I raced in Opening Day in 2005. I see this more as a gift, like a ‘thank you for racing in this awesome event.’ And since it’s an invitational, it’s not like the 5K fun run where anyone can sign up and everyone gets the “free t-shirt” that really isn’t free, since you’re paying the race entry fee. I was more than OK with receiving a t-shirt for Opening Day (truth be told, I was REALLY excited for getting a gold medal since I was racing with an awesomely fast crew). Only thing was, out of all of the shirts we received, just one was a small, for the coxswain, of course. There might have been a men’s medium here or there, but somehow I ended up with a Men’s XL. What the hell am I supposed to do with a Men’s XL?

Well, I think it was Jody from rowing who triggered the idea to just tailor it so it would fit. That was two years ago. Today I actually did the dirty work. I also hemmed an apron that the husband purchased at Crate and Barrel last year during a post-holiday sale. It’s only taken me 10 months to do that. Yay.

Below is a pic of the shirt I trimmed, laid on top of a Men’s Large shirt:

That’s just a Large. Originally, the XL (and, yes, I should have snapped a shot before I cut it up but who thinks ahead like that?) was much larger. I cut 7 inches from the bottom; I took in 3.25 inches from both sides. I basically had to get rid of the short sleeves altogether, and then sewed up the arm holes another 3 inches on each side. Then I cut off the collar ring (what the heck do you call that thing?)

Voila! It only took 2.5 years.

I can’t wear this to many other places than the gym. But, hey, a new gym shirt. Yay gym!

**On a side note … SWAG, according to Wikipedia, stands for “Samples, Wearables and Gifts”. I always thought it meant “Shit We All Get”.