Magic Underwear, Navel-Gazing…
Not to treat sacred things lightly, but could someone please explain to me how it is that when I buy a new pair of pristine white garments, for the first six months or so of wear they produce baby blue lint in my belly-button?
hint: the dark color isn’t from the garments.
Comment by Steve Evans — January 26, 2008 @ 1:26 pm
It could be from some sort of bluing that might be applied to the fabric.
Comment by Starfoxy — January 26, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
Do your children have access to markers while you sleep?
Comment by Ray — January 26, 2008 @ 1:49 pm
I’m pretty sure that only happens to people who aren’t really worthy to wear them. It’s like the garments are rejecting your navel. I guess we could use the relative color of our belly button lint as a measure of our person worthiness. Kind of like the Picture of Dorian Gray. Baby blue probably means you watch R rated movies (without nudity), use profanity under your breath, or vote Democrat. As I examine mine right now, I notice it is coal black. Out damn’d spot! Out I say!
Comment by kurt — January 26, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
Does my reaction to #4 constitute coveting my neighbor’s wit?
Comment by Ray — January 26, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
Are you tucking in your shirt? Does your belly hang over into your blue jeans, perchance?
Comment by meems — January 26, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
For the record: I do watch rated R movies (sometimes even with nudity), I do vote Democrat, and I always tuck my garment tops into my jeans.
Class this one under “mysteries” I guess.
Comment by Brad — January 26, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
#7 - I think my belly-button tea leaf reading got it pretty close.
Comment by kurt — January 26, 2008 @ 2:27 pm
Maybe it has something to do with blue Starbursts your wife eats in the shower…
Comment by Kevin Barney — January 26, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
Kevin,
You’re confusing me (and my wife) with Steve (and Steve’s wife). My wife’s shower-food of choice is watermelon jolly-rancher chews.
Comment by Brad — January 26, 2008 @ 2:51 pm
re: #10 - Kevin, having never met those Brad mentions, is it easy (or even possible) to confuse them? Just curious.
Comment by Ray — January 26, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
Speaking of new garments, is there any greater pleasure than tearing open that packet and imbibing the new garment smell?
I noticed my latest garments (bought in London) were made in Chile. What heavenly Andean aromas!
Comment by RonanJH — January 26, 2008 @ 4:16 pm
#12, Ronan, I can think of any number of greater pleasures, from Celestial sex (don’t ask) to DKL’s brownies.
Comment by Ann — January 26, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
Ann,
[Actually, I'm not going to go there...]
Comment by RonanJH — January 26, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
Shower snacks, belly-button lint, what’s next, a post on the wonders of toe jam?
Comment by MCQ — January 26, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
Oh what comfort this discussion gives! I’ve been making fun of my husband for years because he always has blue lint in his belly button. Seriously, how does it get there!?
Comment by bluelint — January 26, 2008 @ 5:05 pm
Oh what comfort this topic gives! I’ve been making fun of my husband for years because he has blue lint in his belly button. It’s nice to know others have this strange phenomena as well. Seriously, how does it get there!
Comment by bluelint — January 26, 2008 @ 5:07 pm
Serious people actually study this kind of thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navel_lint.
Comment by jrw — January 26, 2008 @ 5:17 pm
MCQ,
That’s already been done, too.
Look here, for instance, at comment # 35.
Comment by Mark Brown — January 26, 2008 @ 5:18 pm
Now when it turns blue, doesn’t it mean… Oh, gosh! Oh, Brad– You’re having a baby!
Or your pant waist got wet when you were doing the dishes and bled into your naval.
No, that’s stupid. You’re pregnant.
Comment by David T. — January 26, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
Maybe if you changed them at intervals of less than six months you could avoid this problem.
Comment by Jared — January 26, 2008 @ 6:24 pm
Mark, that’s hardly worthy of note. We need a full post by someone who can wax poetic about the beautiful bouquet, the tactile traesure trove, and the pleasurable palatability of toe jam. You seem like just the guy to tackle this project. Go for it!
Comment by MCQ — January 26, 2008 @ 6:25 pm
Finally! A forum where it wouldn’t be inappropiate to complain about those plasticky, skin-irritatingly abrasive size tags the new garments have had lately. I mean, what’s the deal with those?
Comment by Duke of Earl Grey — January 26, 2008 @ 6:35 pm
#16 — Yes! My husband as well! I just don’t understand it.
#23 — I always rip out those horrid tags. How can one abide having something so scratchy on one’s skin?
Comment by courtney — January 26, 2008 @ 7:10 pm
Does it taste salty? Mine always does…..
Comment by adcama — January 26, 2008 @ 7:16 pm
#25 - Do I really want to ask to which comment this one was directed? I see three distinct options, and envisioning each of them is worse than my own recent TMI comment.
Comment by Ray — January 26, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
Blue - male
Pink - female
or
Blue - Base
Pink - Acidic
Comment by Mark B. — January 26, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
The garments are not actually white. they are originally a blue color and then they are dyed white. That’s why they fade to a gray, not to a yellow. Or so I’ve been told by others.
Comment by John — January 26, 2008 @ 9:10 pm
Ray, don’t you ever get curious to see what your belly button lint tastes like?
Comment by adcama — January 26, 2008 @ 10:16 pm
adcama, I thought that’s what you meant. It caused a spontaneous laugh.
No, I never have. (and even typing that makes me laugh again)
Comment by Ray — January 26, 2008 @ 10:40 pm
I’ve come to realize that there are many strange people in this world and that we are some of them.
Comment by ArielW — January 27, 2008 @ 12:35 am
Well, I, for one, am edified.
Comment by David T. — January 27, 2008 @ 12:58 am
31 - Yeah! Peculiar is what we like to say.
25 - That is one of the more sick things I’ve heard lately. Almost as bad as choking on someone elses vomit. . .
Actually, every morning I have some sort of lint in my belly button. Not sure if the garments cause it or not. It is usually blue.
Comment by Jacob M — January 27, 2008 @ 5:11 am
33, I’m sure there’s a story there that I don’t want to hear (and yet, I’m strangely curious…).
Belly button lint is always blue. Always.
Comment by Allison — January 27, 2008 @ 7:49 am
I wouldn’t know about belly button lint as I am the fortunate owner of a superior “outie,” but what I want to know is why the left leg of my garments always rides up. It’s never the right, only ever the left. Anyone else have this problem? Perhaps my left thigh is fatter than my right? Again, TMI…
Comment by Kim — January 27, 2008 @ 11:49 am
Maybe all this belly-button lint is God’s way of punishing us for abandoning the nylon, one piece, butt fly garments my dad still wears.
Comment by kurt — January 27, 2008 @ 12:30 pm
Kim–Don’t think ‘fatter.’ Think ‘greater.’
Comment by Jami — January 27, 2008 @ 12:35 pm
Belly button lint is certainly a funny topic, but I’m not too comfortable with toilet humour in connection with the holy garments… What they represent deserves a bit more respect I think
Comment by Nicolas Connault — January 27, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
18. Didn’t find belly button lint at that link, but did find it at this one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belly_button_lint
All that I’ve ever wanted to know and more.
Comment by Jami — January 27, 2008 @ 1:53 pm
34 - per your request (kind of), here is the story on the vomit. Go to 1:40 for the actual story. Entire clip is quite hilarious, though.
Comment by Jacob M — January 27, 2008 @ 1:59 pm
Re 39: weird. I copied the link right out of the browser…. Same article, though.
Comment by jrw — January 27, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
jrw It was the period. I figured it out after I posted. Yours had a period. Mine re-routed to the one you meant. Picky wiki.
Comment by Jami — January 27, 2008 @ 4:26 pm
Jami: thanks. I’ll have to remember that next time. Kind of a gross picture.
Comment by jrw — January 27, 2008 @ 5:27 pm
#25 - I checked, but the link in #39 does not answer your question.
Comment by Ray — January 27, 2008 @ 5:42 pm
Ray–Only Brad can answer that question unless he’d like to send out samples for brave, fool-hardy taste-testers.
Comment by Jami — January 27, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
I’ve noticed the same thing with new garments. Of course, I haven’t experienced that in a long long time. Mine are so old that they are practically transparent. Plus they’ve shrunk to the point that the shirts are now basically belly shirts and the bottoms hot pants. That’s part of living in the “field” I guess.
Comment by izzy — January 27, 2008 @ 10:01 pm
That wikipedia link was sweet! You could have started with that and abandoned the rest of the comments.
Comment by jessawhy — January 27, 2008 @ 10:47 pm
In reference to the Wiki article mentioned in #39, I thought the most interesting piece of information was this:
That’s all it takes?
Comment by sol — January 28, 2008 @ 9:08 pm
not the Nobel prize, the “Ig Nobel Prize”
Comment by izzy — January 28, 2008 @ 10:26 pm
The same thing happens with any new clothing containing cotton. It starts to shed fuzz and mixes with your constantly-shedding jeans. Either that or you are not a True Blue Mormon and your garments are sending you a subtle message.
Comment by Buck Jeppson — February 2, 2008 @ 1:18 am